Children in Prison in South Africa - Community Law Centre

Dedicated facilities for JuvenilesThree of the facilities visited are dedicated juvenileprisons. Rustenburg prison was formerly a reformatoryschool and now only accommodates sentenced maleprisoners under the age of 21. The prison has acapacity of 110 and was below capacity on the dayof the visit. The main purpose of the prison is torehabilitate and train offenders sentenced'to a maximumterm of less than five years.Brandvlei is a model facility, with a broad programmeof educational and rehabilitative facilities for juvenilesprisoners. It is the policy of the Department of CorrectionalServices to build similar youth centres in other provinces,for example the planned facilities at Baviaanspoort.Despite its status as a model Youth Development Centre,Ekuseni was found to accommodate persons up to25 years of age, as well as juveniles under 21 andchildren. Children are housed in a separate village,but mix with adults for vocational and educationaltraining. The selection of prisoners for Ekuseni appearsto be inconsistent with the aims of the Centre. Manyprisoners are serving very long sentences - up to 30years - which raises some important questions aboutthe purpose of the Centre, and its ability to continueproviding youth-centred services.Records"In every place where juveniles are detained, a completeand secure record of the following information shouldbe kept concerning each juvenile received:a) The fact and reasons for commitment and theauthority there for;b) The day and hour of admission, transfer andrelease;c) Details of the notifications to parents and guardianson every admission, transfer or release of thejuvenile in their care at the time of commitment;d) Details of known physical and mental healthproblems, including drug and alcohol abuse. "(UN RULES 21)During the visits, the prison records were frequentlyfound to be out of date or inaccurate. Often,researchers had to 'dig around' all over the prison tofind the children housed there. This made accuratefigures difficult to gauge.At Odi Prison, where the authorities said there were nochildren awaiting trial, the researchers came intocontact with a 17 year old boy. In the sentencedsection, where the authorities claimed they were holdingonly 11 children under the age of 18, researcherswere introduced to a group of 44 young boys allegedto be under the age of 18. It was explained that theyhad just arrived and that their details had not beenentered in the official records. On interviewing theboys, however, it was apparent that some of themhad been in custody for over a week.At Pretoria Central, although the researchers werepresented with a computerised list purporting torepresent all children accommodated at time of visit,only one name corresponded with the names ofchildren interviewed. Although the authorities admittedthat the records were "not up to date", it became clearthat they were, in fact, completely out of date. Anupdated list was requested.At Upington, the researchers were initially told therewere no sentenced children in the prison, but'fivewere eventually found. These children reported thatothers were to be found in the section for sentencedjuveniles.