Members of Parliament's Select Committee on Security and Justice got a glimpse of life in Pollsmoor Prison, where some of SA's most hardened criminals are incarcerated.
The Select Committee On Security and Justice last week conducted an oversight visit to Pollsmoor Prison to review the Department of Correctional Services' (DCS) operations, including staffing, programmes and infrastructure challenges.
The visit was sparked by a viral TikTok video showing Zimbabwean national Bornface Banks -- who is facing charges of murder, extortion and firearm possession -- inside the Goodwood Correctional Centre. In the video, Banks boasted about his ease of life behind bars and displayed prohibited items.
Banks was subsequently transferred to a maximum security facility in the Western Cape. He is due to appear in court again on 9 October.
DA member Nicholas Gotsell, a member of the committee that visited Pollsmoor, said: "The inhumane conditions which remand detainees -- who are presumed innocent until they are found guilty -- are subjected to include no mattresses on the few beds in cells which house detainees upon their return from court, a flooded corridor and filthy bathrooms and toilets."
He said the conditions were exacerbated by courts not dealing with cases speedily.
"The DA calls on the ministers of justice and correctional services, Thembi Simelane and Pieter Groenewald, to urgently fast-track the use of virtual hearings, where these...
