John Ekongo
15 August 2008
Windhoek — Police Regional Commander for Omaheke, Commissioner Ananias Muzile, has expressed concern over the overpopulation of five major police holding cells under his command in the region.
The Omaheke police currently have 297 trial-awaiting prisoners in holding cells that were originally designed to hold 235 people.
Of the five major holding cells, Gobabis has the most occupants, with 109 people awaiting trial in a facility meant to house 60 people. Next is Leonardsville with 62 people in a facility with a capacity for 50. Du Plessis holding cell has 61 people when it should hold 40.
Witvlei and Trans Kalahari holding facilities are the only exception, where inmates are below the capacity of the cells. Witvlei is currently housing 31, nine inmates short of its capacity of 40. Trans Kalahari has 34 inmates, but it can hold up to 45 prisoners.
Inmates come in for a variety of crimes like stock theft, assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, which is largely attributed to alcohol and drug abuse, as well as murder cases and crimes committed by juveniles such as house breaking and theft.
According to Muzile, a situation like this can easily lead to anarchy, as it is dangerous to confine too many people in one place. Control would be difficult in a riot situation, he said. However, what worries Muzile the most is the human rights aspect, in terms of space, health and sanitation.
Lack of sleeping and bathroom facilities, unhygienic conditions, increase in prison offences, and the subsequent need for extra police personnel to guard and tend to prisoners, are but some of the challenges that they face.
Police cells are originally designed to keep arrested people in custody, pending a first appearance before a magistrate or judicial officer.
Consequently, the holding capacity of police cells is relatively small, ranging between 20 and 211 total cell capacity. In Namibia, most of the police cells have a total cell capacity of less than 50. Moreover police cells are not designed for extended imprisonment, but only for overnight or over weekend detention of suspects. If pre-charge suspects and trial-awaiting prisoners are incarcerated together, the result is overcrowded police cells.
A shortage of magistrates and other court officials, the high cost of legal representation, and slow or incomplete police investigations have resulted in a serious backlog of criminal cases, which often translate into delays of up to one year or more between arrest and trial.
Figures of last year indicate that out of 12 regions of the country, a total of 53477 spaces were occupied in police holding facilities.
Khomas had the highest number of suspects, with 12077, Oshana with 9072, Otjozondjupa with 5323, Oshikoto with 4864, Omusati with 4777, Karas with 3746 Kunene with 3463, Erongo with 3341, Ohangwena with 3103, Caprivi with 2633 and Kavango with 102. Erongo and Hardap's figures were outstanding.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 New Era. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
