The Judicial Inspectorate of Prisons (JICS) says it remains concerned about dire overcrowding in the country’s prisons.
In March this year, before President Cyril Ramaphosa announced a special remission for non-violent offenders, the prison population stood at almost 160,000.
Briefing Parliament on its annual report on Thursday, JICS noted that the year in review also recorded the highest number of remand detainees ever in the past decade.
Overcrowding in the country’s prisons is a perennial problem.
The Department of Correctional Services told Parliament’s justice portfolio committee that before the presidential remission announced in August, which freed 15,000 inmates, overcrowding had spiked to 46%, having gone up 9% in just one year.
As of October, the overcrowding rate stands at 38%.
Inspecting judge of prisons, Edwin Cameron: “It’s not going to help us to bemoan and bewail overcrowding when we can stop crime, we stop violent crime, we can reduce cash-in-transit heists, we can reduce zama zamas, provided we are willing to go to the top and for that, Crime Intelligence is necessary.”
The inspectorate said that the number of offenders serving life sentences was also at an all-time high, meaning prisons were staying fuller for longer.
More than 50,000 detainees in the country’s prisons are still waiting to be sentenced.
-EWN
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