Prisoners welcome their prime position in Covid-19 vaccine queue

The announcement that prisoners would be near the front of the queue when it comes to getting vaccinated against Covid-19 has been welcomed by a prisoners’ rights group, but they have also warned government that they will be keeping a close eye on them.

President Cyril Ramaphosa on Monday night made the announcement that those in the country’s correctional facilities would be among the second group of people to receive the vaccine, right after medical professionals.

In response, the South African Prisoners Organisation for Human Rights (SAPOHR) said they were hopeful that the rollout would be successful, and that vaccines would save lives. They have also warned, however, that they would not allow prisoners to be used as guinea pigs and if there were any adverse side effects to the vaccine, government “would be caught out”.

“We are not scientists we are not biologists and doctors, we are relying on what they are telling us. But as far as we are concerned as an organisation that represents [prisoners], they might be used as a guinea pig to double check whether this thing has side effects,” the organisation’s Golden Miles Bhudu said on Tuesday morning.

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“That’s all we can say. We will just hope for the better and not for the worse, but if these people want to use the prisoners as guinea pigs they will be caught out.”

Bhudu was, however, positive that the vaccination rollout would improve conditions for prisoners.

“These people are sitting on a time bomb. The president complained about overcrowding in houses and residential areas and squatter camps and that is how the virus gets spread. But prisoners are in their numbers in chronically overcrowded environments and so on. But if the vaccine can save lives we will be happy as an organisation.”

Prisoners living in fear

Bhudu pointed out that the World Health Organization (WHO) said the reason prisoners had to be prioritised for vaccination because of how easily they could transmit the disease to fellow inmates and staff.

“Even though evidence has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that in the South African prisons, the scenario is vice versa, meaning it is the prison staff that infect prisoners and their colleagues. Prisoners are now and then stripped by the emergency support team [EST] with bare hands, sometimes without wearing face masks.”

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Beside the “chronic” issue of overcrowding which persisted despite the release of nearly 30,000 prisoners in a remission programme last year, prisoners have complained of social distancing regulations not being met in the prisons.

Prisoners said they feared that the virus could spread to them at uncontrollable rates in the overcrowded cells. This was especially the case in facilities for awaiting trial prisoners, which were notoriously overcrowded.

Pandemic exacerbating violence between prisoners and officials

Meanwhile, prisoners who have reportedly been hit hard by the second wave of Covid-19 infections in the country say brutality and human rights violations are compounding the impact of the pandemic behind bars. This despite government efforts to reduce the inmate population in the country, which according to its latest figures stands at 140,000.

This week saw a spike in reported cases of the virus in prisons, with Helderstroom Prison in the Western Cape shut down after 152 inmates and eight officials tested positive. In Gauteng alone, 1102 officials tested positive along with 592 inmates. But with the overcrowding and the pandemic fuelling tensions in the cells, violence between inmates and officials ran rampant this year in South African jails.

Inmates who reached out to The Citizen complained that hundreds of them who were due for parole and other forms of release this year were still stuck indefinitely behind bars, where atrocities at the hands of fellow inmates, as well as correctional services officials, had been alleged.

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Unathi Mpongoza is serving a ten-year prison sentence at the Tswelopele Correctional Facility in Kimberley where another inmate was allegedly killed by a member of the EST. This unit’s primary role is to manage and de-escalate violent incidents among prisoners.

According to Mpongoza, he and many prisoners fear for their lives as violence is a daily reality in the facility.

“When the national EST is here we get tortured and beaten up but we pose no danger to them. If they find you with a cellphone they beat you up then force you to sign a charge sheet. Even if you want to open a case, it’s difficult because they will ask you who did this and you will not know. In this prison, we are not provided with sanitisers when we go to the Telkom telephone and stand in a long line without a police officer standing by,” said Mpongoza.

Overcrowding to be eased by opening new prisons

Department of Correctional Services spokesperson Singabakho Nxumalo said government was aware of the persistent issue of overcrowding in the country’s prisons, and planned to increase the capacity of existing facilities while the construction of ew ones was under way.

“During the month of May 2019 alone, Standerton and Estcourt correctional centres were officially opened by the former minister, Michael Masutha. The two centres combined account for 1998 bed spaces. A newly renovated C-Max Correctional Centre, at Kgosi Mampuru II Management Area, has been completed and will bring into the grid 283 bed spaces, whilst Tzaneen Correctional Centre which is near completion will be armed with 435 bed spaces,” he said.

According to Nxumalo, the government saw a decrease in the number of reported cases of assaults of inmates due to the intensification of management supervision and work done by the National Security Committee in dealing with emergency security issues.

“We remain committed to ensuring that our correctional centres are transformed into safe and secure correctional facilities that are conducive to our rehabilitation programmes.”

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