Concern over conditions in prisons

A senior prison official has warned of widespread malnutrition and disease in Zimbabwe's jails, due to a shortfall in funds for food and medicines. Zimbabwe Prison Service (ZBS) chief accountant Rosemary Kanonge told parliament's portfolio committee on justice and legal affairs earlier this month that, apart from the shortfall in funds, overcrowding in Zimbabwe's jails would also worsen the situation. The country's prisons have the capacity to hold 16,000 prisoners, but are currently home to about 22,000 inmates. The committee, which has been assessing the adequacy of the 2005 budget allocations to the ministry of justice and the prisons department, will report its findings to parliament when it resumes in February next year. Kanonge told the committee that although "there is a statutory instrument that stipulates the basic requirements of prisoners for food and bedding provisions, ... in most cases this is difficult to fulfill owing to inadequate resources". She said out of a budget request of Zim $212.4 billion (about US $37 million) for prisoners' food, as well as bedding and uniforms for both inmates and prison officers, the department had been allocated $126 billion (US $22 million). Kanonge said the department was given Zim $10.6 billion (US $1.7 million) for medicines for both prisoners and their guards, enough to purchase drugs for three months only. The department had asked the finance ministry for Zim $236 billion (US $41 million) for medicines for its prison hospitals. Recent reports have warned that infectious diseases such as tuberculosis have become increasingly prevalent in Zimbabwe's prisons. Meanwhile, the director of the NGO the Prison Fellowship, Peter Mandiyanike, has urged the judiciary to review sentencing for petty crimes. "For example, minor crimes in our culture went before the chief. It was the family or kraal head who dealt with them and compensation was the major issue. For instance, if I stole your chickens, it was not a big deal as this was dealt with at family level, the kraal head would say, 'look you've been caught with Taurai's chicken which could have laid eggs ... return the chicken to her plus another chicken as compensation'," Mandiyanike explained. An analysis of Zimbabwe's prison statistics from about 10 years ago revealed that some 60 percent of serving prisoners were persons with six months imprisonment terms or less. Eighty percent were persons serving 12 months' jail time or less.