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‘Sex toy’ and PlayStations: ‘Prisoners were enjoying the time of their lives in Sun City’ [VIDEOS]
The raid unveiled a large haul of contraband from prisoners' cells.
Picture: The Witness
A shocking discovery was made at the Johannesburg Correctional Centre, infamously known as ‘Sun City’, on Wednesday night.
This comes after a surprise raid by the Department of Correctional Services’ Emergency Support Team (EST) and the South African Police Service (Saps) uncovered a staggering array of contraband items in the Medium B section of the prison, which houses medium-risk offenders.
Staggering array of contraband
Among the illicit items seized were cellphones, gaming equipment, sex toys, nail art supplies, drugs, and alcohol.
Authorities uncovered and confiscated more during the raid. They also found PlayStations, consoles, WiFi routers, manicure nail kits, designer perfumes, and flat-screen plasma televisions.
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The sheer scale of the contraband suggests a sophisticated network of smuggling and corruption within the prison walls.
Department of Correctional Services National Commissioner Samuel Thobakgale said the inmates busted with televisions were unable to produce the necessary permits for the appliances found in their possession.
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According to Thobakgale, the raid was prompted by intelligence suggesting that inmates were operating criminal networks from within the facility.
The offenders used cords to connect WiFi routers, charge cellphones and power gaming devices.
A glimmer of progress
Thobakgale expressed confidence that the department is making progress in its efforts to root out contraband smuggling.
“Within an hour, a considerable amount of contraband had been confiscated by police,” he said.
Additionally, Thobakgale said the section they were searching had approximately 5000 inmates. He also added that they had similar searches regularly and this was not the last of them.
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Loopholes and corruption
Despite these regular checks and searches, including searches of their own officials, Thobakgale acknowledged that its system has loopholes that enable inmates to smuggle illicit substances.
“We have those lapses in the security system, we also have our own officials undermining the system, and we discipline them when we catch them. Even here, now as we do the search, some of the offenders are able to say ‘no this thing that I have here, that you found on me, this is how it came through’. We then follow up on those [involved],” said the commissioner.
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Warning to colluders
The commissioner warned that community members who collude with inmates to smuggle contraband not only jeopardise the chances of rehabilitation and corrections but also put their own lives at risk.
“Once caught, they’d be arrested,” he cautioned.
Social media reactions
Netizens attributed the conducting and result of this raid to the recent video that circulated on social media featuring an inmate claiming that life in prison is comfortable. The inmate bragged about access to free food, electricity, and education, as well as the ability to use a cellphone to post on social media.
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In the video, the inmate could be heard saying: “Hello haters, you put us in prison and you think we are suffering? No, my brother, we are doing extremely fine, look how happy we are.”
Other inmates in the background seemed to agree with him.
The circulating raid videos drew sharp criticism from the public, with many expressing concern that prisoners are not facing sufficient consequences for their actions and are instead enjoying privileges that many law-abiding citizens can only dream of.
One social media user said “Prisoners were enjoying the time of their lives in Sun City”, noting the lack of proper correcting and rehabilitation.
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