Criminal justice shame

One in four prisoners - 40 000 people - should not be behind bars, according to South Africa's monitor of prisons.

This emerged in a searing indictment of the criminal justice system by Judge Deon van Zyl of the Judicial Inspectorate for Correctional Services, who was briefing a parliamentary portfolio committee on Wednesday.

He painted an ugly picture of the state of awaiting-trial prisoners and a police inability to conclude cases, prolonging the detention period of inmates - some facing minor charges.

Given the high number of awaiting-trial suspects, it seemed police measured their success on the number of arrests, and not convictions, Van Zyl said.

Van Zyl told the multiparty committee he was certain that out of the 50 000 awaiting-trial prisoners, 40 000 would be released because of lack of evidence.

The judge said out of the prison population of 165 000 inmates, 50 000 were awaiting trial.

"There are too many people awaiting trial," the judge stated.

He accused police officers of not properly investigating cases, and postponing matters in the courts for months and even years, resulting in some inmates succumbing to illnesses.

"You don't postpone the matter until you know there is a bona fide investigation going on. Why are our magistrates allowing matters to be postponed?" asked Van Zyl.

The judge said he would like to see the number of unsentenced prisoners halved as soon as possible to reduce overcrowding in prisons. This could be done through releasing detainees who posed no threat to society.

He said he would for the next three years focus his energies in correcting this defect: "I don't want to be a watchdog. I want to play a role in the review of the criminal justice system," Van Zyl said.

Lukas Muntingh of the Civil Society Prison Reform Initiative said last night that research into three court districts had shown that about half of the cases against awaiting-trial detainees were later dropped.

"Why do the police arrest someone in the first case if there is no good case against him? That amounts to arbitrary detention," he said.

Muntingh added that people who had been arrested should be offered the option of a plea bargain in the first few hours after their arrest. This could help avoid unnecessary detention and keep prison numbers down.

"About half of the awaiting-trial detainees have been in detention for three or four months," he said.

He added that he recently heard of a detainee in Pretoria Central prison who had been waiting for nine years for his case to be concluded.

On deaths in prison, Van Zyl said 500 prisoners had died in the past six months.

Van Zyl told MPs that a number of inmates were raped and sexually assaulted, with some contracting sexually transmitted diseases.

There were instances where police arrested a healthy individual who died later of natural causes while awaiting trial.

"What is worrying us is that in the first six months (of this year) we have had 500 deaths. We are told those are natural deaths. I would like to see every single death followed by a post-mortem or inquiry.

"Why was that person subjected to rape (or) sexual assault on the first day of his arrival, as a result six months later he is dead?" asked Van Zyl.

In a previous report, the inspectorate's statistics showed that 37 percent of prisoners who died in custody did so within the first 12 months of custody, and 62 percent had occurred within the first three years.