Correctional Services National Commissioner Makgothi Thobakgale led a raid at the Goodwood Correctional Centre in Cape Town on Thursday in response to a viral video of an inmate taking about his comfortable lifestyle behind bars.
Early on Thursday, correctional services officials raided the prison and searched for contraband.
“Contraband is objects that are not allowed, that breach security, like sharp objects, knives, cellphones, and modems,” said Thobakgale in an interview with Newzroom Afrika.
How contraband gets into the prison
Thobakgale said in some cases, when the inmates leave the prison for court cases, they often find an opportunity to sneak in contraband.
“Some of these [items] are swallowed; they are kept in the stomachs or inside the body. Now for us to be able to get to identify those we have to use body scanners. We have few of those obviously because they are very expensive so we do our level best,” he said.
The other challenging factor is that prison officials allegedly smuggle these items into the prisons for inmates.
“We have 66 officials that have been dismissed so far because of such transgressions,” said Thobakgale.
Risks of contraband
The correctional services commissioner said these objects put inmates and officials in danger.
“Officials get stabbed, attacked daily, because of the prevalence of such. So, us being here today is just to check the level of cleanliness of the facility from contrabands.”
Searches were conducted last Friday and a few more times since then. They are conducted at various times of the day, to avoid inmates hiding the items elsewhere.
“We will open a cell, we’ll take inmates to a private space where we will do the body searches, because as I’ve indicated some of these items are kept inside the body. After that they will then have to go to their beds; they pick up their belongings and they get out so we can get in and search,” he said.
Inmate brags about prison life
The raids occurred after Zimbabwean inmate Bornface Banks, who is detained for alleged kidnapping, sparked outcry when he posted a video of him saying that he lives a “happy” life in prison.
Banks was taken through a disciplinary process and moved to another facility.
“The activities that other medium inmates were exposed to, he will not be exposed to,” Thobakgale said.
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