DCS has taken control of Mangaung Correctional Centre before

Despite the department of correctional services (DCS) taking control of the Mangaung Correctional Centre in the Free State, this is not the first time: it did so in 2013, after the private security contractor “lost effective control of the facility”.

Multiple media reports indicate that the prison is known for its spate of stabbings and a “worrying deterioration of safety and security”.

DCS vs G4S

The Mail & Guardian noted that the DCS served G4S with 29 financial penalties for violence which erupted in the prison since 14 September, 2013, totalling a reported R 1.44 million.

In February, 2020, the DCS was forced by a court order to release documents related to a 10-month investigation of Mangaung prison under the control of private security companies.

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“As expected, the report details a number of disturbing incidents involving officials, healthcare workers and their treatment of people incarcerated at Mangaung,” Centre for Applied Legal Studies’ attorney Sithuthukile Mkhize noted in a report on incidents in the G4Srun prison, published by Wits University.

Mkhize said the disturbing incidents included “a person… dying while being held in a cell which is said to have had no lighting or ventilation, recording his death as a suicide”.

“Officials also segregated incarcerated people without proper approval and taser guns were being purchased without any officials having been trained to use these weapons.”

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