AIDS quadruples prison deaths

Natural deaths in South African prisons have quadrupled within the last six years, mainly due to HIV/AIDS, a senior prison official has said. The inspecting judge of prisons, Johannes Fagan, said the natural death rate had risen from 1.65 percent per 1,000 prisoners in 1995 to 7.75 percent in 2002. Fagan was quoted by the South African Press Association as saying: "The continued escalation at the rate of 34 percent a year will mean about 15,000 prisoners could die in the next five years." While expressing optimism that medical releases of prisoners had seen an increase from 49 percent in 1996 to 88 percent in 2002, he said certain prisoners were forced to remain in prison because doctors were reluctant to certify them as terminally ill. Fagan called for the early release policy for terminally ill prisoners to be reconsidered.