Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Correctional Services has urged the Department of Correctional Services (DCS) to urgently implement strategies to curb the rising tide of contraband in prisons.
Committee chairperson, Kgomotso Ramolobeng said it has heard that to date, more than 41,000 cellphones, over R200,000 proceeds of illicit drugs had been confiscated, and 64 correctional services officials have been implicated in these illegal acts. This information was revealed after a briefing from DCS on contraband found in correctional centres across the country and measures in place to prevent it.
“Of these implicated officials, 16 were dismissed,11 were criminally charged and their cases were handed over to South African Police Services (SAPS), while 37 are still under investigation. The remainder could not be found guilty or charged due to lack of evidence directly implicating them in any illegality,” Ramolobeng said.
She said the quantity of illegal cellphones found circulating in prisons outnumber the number of inmates.
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“These alarming numbers of contrabands could be related to the fact that visitors caught trafficking contrabands in these centres are not arrested immediately. They are instead banned from visiting prisons for a certain period and that creates a circle of repeat offenders due to this policy that does not have stringent consequences,” Ramolobeng said.
She further decried the fact that there are only 14 body scanners across the 243 correctional centres situated across the country.
“The department needs to reprioritise its budget in spite of fiscal cuts to ensure that there is the incremental roll-out of body scanners because they are critical for the safety of officials and inmates as well,” Ramolobeng said.
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