Children in Prison in South Africa - Community Law Centre

the ages of 15 and 17. In an emergency, social workersare brought in from one of the other prisons.At Pretoria Central Medium B, there are two socialworkers allocated to the section, and the juvenilesalso have access to the five or six psychologists whoserve the entire prison complex of about 5 000 prisoners.At Pietermaritzburg, researchers were told that socialwork services were provided by Correctional Services'and that the needs of juveniles were catered for.At Pollsmoor Medium A Section for sentenced juveniles,one social worker deals with the 327 juveniles(including 21 children under 18). She reported thatshe interviewed each juvenile on his arrival and,from this, was able to assess his needs.under the age of 21 (50 under the age of 18f at Westville.The researcher commented on the shortage of social workstaff. The social worker interviewed reported that shewould like to work with parents, especially at the prereleasestage, but that they were generally not responsive.She had also tried to refer families to other agencies butthese referrals were not followed up. With more staff, shesaid she could run therapy groups with all sentencedjuveniles, visit their families at home, and prepare familiesto receive the young person when he was released.There are two social workers and one social workstudent at the Westville Youth Centre for an average of200 2 unsentenced and awaiting trial boy children underthe age of 18. NICRO sends one additional person tohelp one morning a week. The two social workersprofessed to be under great pressure and said that theycould not provide the necessary supervision during therecreation period as they had children to interview andcould not do everything. At this facility, the socialworkers were clear about the need for child care workersto supervise the children, as well as more social workersto follow up court cases and undertake individualtherapeutic work. If staff were provided, they said, theywould be able to concentrate on therapeutic work.At the time of the visit, neither a social worker nor apsychologist was employed at the Westville Women'sPrison. The prison population was 300, with fivesentenced and three unsentenced children betweenWhat the children sayEven where there are social workers, the children oftensaid that they were either unaware of their existenceor had never spoken to them. At Johannesburg MediumA, awaiting trial and unsentenced prisoners said theyhad never seen a social worker in their lives. They were,indeed, not aware that they were entitled to ask to seea social worker if they needed assistance. At St Albans,there were two social workers employed at the prison,one of whom worked with the juveniles. However, onlyone of the twelve children interviewed reported thathe had met with a social worker, saying that he hadasked to meet the family of his victims to apologisefor what he did. He had allegedly been sentenced totwo years imprisonment for murder and robbery.In Thohoyandou Female Prison, researchers were toldthat the social worker had visited the cell in which thejuveniles were held only once in order to check thebabies. The children awaiting trial, of which there weretwo at the time, were not spoken to, despite the factthat one of them was a 17 year bid orphan who hadher own baby with her in prison.Assistance with contacting familiesMore often than not, the children are preoccupiedwith the need to get in touch with their families.9 This average refers to the period November 1996 to April 1997. This number represents an increase* from theAugust to October 1996 average of 120 - 140 and, by the end of April, the averages were between 230 - 245.©VIOLENCEIN PRISONS