One toilet for 44 juvenile offenders
Cockroach- and lice infestations were also noted.
MBOMBELA – The conditions children and juveniles face in correctional centres throughout South Africa raised many an eyebrow this week.
A report presented to Lowvelder by the National Institute for Crime Prevention and the Reintegration of Offenders (Nicro), divulged that a substantial number of children and juveniles were detained in conditions which did not comply with the department’s norms, especially regarding adequate space.
This report formed part of the Judicial Inspectorate for Correctional Services’ annual report (2013/14) which focuses on treatment of inmates and conditions in correctional centres.
“At nearly all the centres children and juveniles slept on beds, but at some beds had been removed due to overcrowding,” judge Mr Vuka Tshabalala, who initiated the three-year investigation, said.
He found that the availability of sheets was a general problem.
Ablution facilities were another concern raised by Tshabalala. According to the standards of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) there should be at least one toilet for a maximum of 25 people in a confined setting. This however, was not the case. During the investigation it was discovered that one centre had only one toilet for 44 inmates.
Cockroach- and lice infestations were also noted.
Although the Correctional Services Act requires that all children of compulsory school-going age must attend educational programmes, it was found, with one exception, that unsentenced children did not have access to education.
According to the Act, children awaiting trial in a correctional centre must attend educational programmes up to the age of 15 or up to completion of the ninth grade.
“Access to libraries was generally limited and for an inexplicable reason it was observed that children awaiting sentencing were excluded from using libraries at a number of centres,” Tshabalala concluded.
