[WATCH] Lamola visits one of SA’s most overcrowded female prisons
Justice and Correctional Services Minister Ronald Lamola says the Johannesburg Female Correctional Centre is housing more than double its 1 800 inmate capacity.
“When its overcrowded it also affects the structure itself. We have gone underground to see. It has difficulties in terms of standing, dripping water.”
The centre in the south of Johannesburg is the only correctional facility in Gauteng that detain inmates with their children. South African law allows a convicted mother to live with her child inside a prison until the child’s second birthday.
Officials are drawing up a long-term master plan to curb overpopulation but building new prisons are not on their agenda just yet because of their time-consuming and costly nature.
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Lamola says a new correctional facility will be opened in Tzaneen while Kgosi Mampuru in Pretoria is being renovated.
“The profile of the new offender has changed. In the past it was people that was coming in for two years, three years but because of the minimum sentence the number of offenders who are year on minimum sentence of 15 years – is becoming higher.”
Ramola conducted an inspection of the facility on Saturday.