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| The crisis our prison systems face |
Overcroded Prisons in South Africa
THE IDEAL
Among the provisions in the South African Constitution is the right of "Every individual who is
incarcerated, including every sentenced inmate to conditions of detention consistent with
human dignity, including; The provision, at state expense, of suitable accommodation."
THE REALITY
this unfortunately is the ideal not the reality. According to the South African institue for race relations(SAIRR) South Africa has the second highest overcrowded prisons in the world. Society has been conditioned to believe that if you are in prison you deserve to be there and that the more crowded the prisons are the less criminals there are roaming the streets this is a misconception. Kerwin Lebone, a researcher at (SAIRR) says South Africa has the highest number of detained prisoners awaiting trial most due to the lack of funds needed to apply for bail. with an unemployment rate of 24,9% est.2010 and most of our inmates being unemployed and poor what do we expect.The magnitude of the situation might not seem that large but these potentially innocent individuals can he forced to join gangs for fear of losing their lives and end up taking part in illegal activities within the prisons, so even if they where innocent after enough time in the prison they'll be guilty.
PRISONERS ARE PEOPLE
there are many dangers to having overcrowded prisions such as rioting, the spread of disease, a lack of food and sleeping space. In Honduras a fire killed 350 inmates the problem was attributed to overcrowding which didn't allow for a speedy enough exacuation.The questions we need to ask ourselves are first of all are our prisoners still human beings? If so why do we treat them like animals? and if not then lets all agree to not use the term correctional services but detention centres or concentration camps, are our correctional services just a excuse to to get rid of individuals that don't fit into society?
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| South African prison life |
Source: http:www.csvr.org/docs/correctional/prisionovercrowding.pdf
http://index mundi.com/south_africa/unemployment.rate html
morrisworldnews.com
Thought provoking indeed, because we have so much going on in our lives we don't really take the time to look at such issues especially if you don't know of anyone who's in prison. I personally didn't know that this is how people live in prisons. I think I need to start paying attention. Thank you for giving me something to think about.
ReplyDeletethank you beautifufz im glad i could enlighten you in some way
Deletepeople are living the hard way.They have done wrong things but they are still brothers which is why the government should look in to the matter of overcrouded prisons
ReplyDeletelooking into the matter is not enough if prisons are not modified and desined to handle the demand we are going to do have death traps not correctional service facilities
DeleteEven though they have commited crime,they dont deserve to stay in an overcroweded place like this mayb the only solution is to build more prisons
ReplyDeleteBuilding more prisons could help, but are we saying that we wan't more criminals? Building more schools means we are expecting more students building hospitals means we wan't patients so what are we saying when we build more prisons?
DeleteQuite interesting, have someone been detained for more than 2 yrs and released for innocence? what happens to the life of that person? Is detaining for longer period without proving guilt legal? south african Justice can be unjust sometimes. wish someone can share light on this one
ReplyDelete