No d ignity for SA prisoners
SOUTH African prisoners are nowhere near being given the human-rights-friendly treatment aimed at setting them on a path to rehabilitation.
Twenty-two years after Nelson Mandela said on June 25, 1998, that the way a society treats its prisoners is one of the sharpest reflections of its character, South Africans jails are overcrowded with incidents of abuse and gangsterism. Operational challenges, such as reporting and overcrowding, and question marks over the independence of the body tasked with monitoring and oversight of South Africa's correctional system have thwarted Madiba’s dream.
Perhaps Mandela was an idealist, or sincerely believed that the apartheid prisons system would eventually morph into a rights-friendly haven with rehabilitation at the heart of democracy. But his vision is far from being realised. In apartheid prisons, the inhumanity of
