by Liezl Maclean
Three of the so-called Waterkloof Four reported at the Pretoria magistrate's court last week Monday to begin their 12-year sentences for murder and assault. A day later they were joined by Christoff Becker, the last of the four, at the Pretoria Central Prison, which is commonly known as New Lock. The imprisonment of the 23-year-old Becker – who was 16 when he and his three accomplices killed a homeless man and assaulted another in December 2001 – finally closed the book on a seven-year drama. As the lives of the four changed forever the spotlight shines on the dangers within the prison walls.
When sentencing convicted criminals to effective terms of imprisonment, one is always hopeful that they will use the time of relative seclusion to reflect upon their misconduct and ultimately rejoin society with a fresh commitment to realise their potential as human beings.
Sadly, the harsh realities of life in the captive environment of prisons too often produce a different result. And most often, what goes on behind those prison doors is not a pretty sight. This is especially true in correctional facilities where the pervasive sub-culture of prison gangs lures prisoners under the guise of 'protection' even further into the darker reaches of criminal conduct.
Perhaps the real sentence for the Waterkloof Four is not going to be the 12 years, but rather the unsavoury scenario's they will face in that time.
A month ago the Mail & Guardian revealed the terrible conditions in which prisoners have been held in prisons all over the country. The issue has been highlighted by two recent incidents. Former Fidentia boss J Arthur Brown was allegedly raped in a van transporting him from the Cape Town Magistrate's Court to Pollsmoor prison last month.
And the rape of a juvenile in a Medium B cell for sentenced adults at Durban's Westville Prison has raised questions about sex slavery and corruption at the facility.
According to Sasha Gear, a researcher at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, who has also published extensively on sexual violence in prisons, "gang practices are intertwined with prison sex. The militaristic gang structures include "institutionalised marriages" which force gender identities on more powerful "men" and the weaker "women" or "wyfies".
The Jali Commission of Inquiry described sexual violence in correctional facilities as a "horrific scourge" that "plagues our prisons, where appalling abuses and acts of sexual perversion are perpetrated on helpless and unprotected prisoners".
But then not too many citizens can be expected to spend too much time worrying about the situation in which people believed to have broken the law are incarcerated. After all the crime rate is so often quoted as being one of the biggest concerns for South African citizens, one that has led many families to pack up and emigrate to other parts of the world.
Currently it would seem that prisons have become places to which individuals go to have any decency and humanity snuffed out of them, the Daily Dispatch recently pointed out.
With so many juveniles engaged in crime, petty and serious, and with many prisons holding adults and younger offenders in the same facilities, the chances of a young person going to prison and coming out reformed are next to zero.
Even sadder, according to what is reported, is that a high percentage of individuals who are taken to correctional facilities will, even if they spend only a few days there, come out sodomised and most likely infected with HIV.
The fact of the matter is that dealing with the brutal conditions in prisons and the level of rape going on is not about coddling prisoners. Allowing everyone who enters prison to be brutalised and further hardened destroys all chances of reformation. After all, when these men and women are released from these prisons they come back into society and it is society that will bear the brunt of their anger.
CSVR is a multi-disciplinary institute that seeks to understand and prevent violence, heal its effects and build sustainable peace at the community, national and regional levels.
