South Africa: Call to Address High AIDS-Related Deaths in Prisons

On Oct. 11, Inspecting Judge for Prisons Johannes Fagan told a parliamentary select committee on security and constitutional affairs that deaths from natural causes, including HIV/AIDS, in South African prisons have surged more than 700 percent in the past nine years. Although enthusiastic about prison improvements resulting from the recent remission of sentences of about 30,000 prisoners, Fagan called for changes in the handling of terminally ill prisoners in the country's overcrowded prisons.

The judge said 211 prisoners died of natural causes in 1996, and the number had risen to 1,689 this year. Deaths from unnatural causes have remained fairly constant, about 70 a year, Fagan said.

South African law allows for a terminally ill prisoner to be placed out on medical parole with conditions. However, Fagan noted, in 2004 only 4.5 percent of terminally ill prisoners were placed on medical parole, compared to 23 percent in 1996.

Fagan repeatedly lauded President Thabo Mbeki and Correctional Services Minister Ngconde Balfour for the remission of sentences granted earlier this year that reduced the country's total prison population to 156,000 from a March high of 186,000. He urged the committee to pressure Justice Minister Brigitte Mabandla to bring the Child Justice Bill, which was before Parliament last year, back to that body because of valuable provisions diverting children away from prisons.

Fagan said changes in parole legislation would also help prison overcrowding. He pointed out that the minimum-sentencing regime requiring prisoners to serve 80 percent of their sentences before being eligible for parole "is simply wrong," noting that under normal circumstances prisoners were eligible for parole after serving half their sentences.

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