Overcrowding leads to prison crisis

Zimbabwe's prisons are full to the hatches with petty criminals and remand prisoners as a result of a slow judicial system that is failing to cope with the backlog of criminal cases. An exodus of magistrates from the Justice Department over low pay, poor working conditions and alleged political interference has worsened the situation. In June last year alone, 10 magistrates resigned at a time when some inmates were "spending up to four years awaiting trial", according to chief magistrate Samuel Kudya. "We have a backlog of up to 60,000 cases countrywide and there are close to 60 vacant magisterial posts. The capital, Harare, has a backlog of 3,200 criminal cases, while pending civil cases stand at 12,000," he said. "We slept fitting into each other like spoons," a former prisoner who refused to be named told IRIN. "Once you have taken a sleeping position you cannot turn and change sides the entire night due to overcrowding. Alternatively, prisoners take turns to sleep." Overcrowding in the country's prisons has resulted in an inevitable rise in infectious diseases such as TB, and AIDS-related deaths. The sheer number of deaths, especially among inmates in the 20 to 29 year age group, have spurred the prison authorities to introduce a daily five-minute programme on national radio appealing for relatives to collect the bodies of the deceased. Justice minister Patrick Chinamasa says his ministry plans to construct seven more prisons. "Our prisons are overcrowded, making it difficult to maintain basic health standards," he has admitted. Zimbabwe's 47 prisons are designed to hold 16,600 prisoners but they have currently overshot that figure by more than 8,000, according to justice ministry officials. Officially, each prisoner is entitled to four blankets, but owing to the overwhelming number of inmates, each prisoner is typically allocated just one. Prison services officials say critical food shortages have forced the prison authorities to feed inmates maize porridge seasoned with salt for breakfast, and boiled cabbage for lunch and supper. A presidential pardon at the beginning of last year, which enabled 5,900 inmates to walk out of prison countrywide, appears to have done little to ease the congestion. Faced with the pressures of overcrowding, some prison officers have reportedly responded with brutality. "The pressure has dehumanised them," the former prisoner said. A recent report presented to the justice ministry by a parliamentary committee revealed complaints among prisoners of severe beatings by prison guards. Four prison officers were arrested in June last year for beating a prisoner to death over a foiled escape bid.