Thousands of prisoners to be released

South Africa’s Correctional Service department will on Monday start to release about 12,000 inmates awaiting trial to ease overcrowding in the country’s 236 prisons.

According to Andrew Aphane, the spokesman for Correctional Services Ministry, 11,940 awaiting trial accused - excluding those charged with rape - will be conditionally released starting from Monday until Friday. “This step is to help relieve overcrowding in South African jails which are 68 percent overpopulated,” Aphane told IRIN.

Aphane said on 31 July, South African prisons had an approved accommodation capacity for 101,006 offenders, while 169,674 offenders were behind bars. “The accused to be released have been detained for minor offences such as failure to pay traffic fines,” Aphane said. He added that they were in prison because they were too poor to pay either bail or fines ranging between US $10 and US $170.

The Correctional Services department, said Aphane, spent about US $160,000 a day of taxpayers’ money to keep the prisoners in detention. “The prisoners would be released from detention, but would still be liable for prosecution for their offences,” added Aphane.

The department also plans to release on parole about 7,000 prisoners from October. Aphane said prisoners serving sentences whose parole dates have been approved will have their release dates advanced by nine months.

This measure, said Aphane, will not apply to prisoners serving life sentences. “The prisoners will be released in controllable groups and under the supervision of the Department until their total sentence has expired,” he added.