8 June 2025
Rebecca Gore (left), Edwin Cameron (centre) and Sohela Surajpal (right), at the launch of their book Behind Prison Walls: Unlocking a Safer South Africa. Photo supplied
A new book, taking a deep dive into South Africa’s correctional system and how it can be improved, was launched in Johannesburg this week.
South Africa has the largest prison population in Africa. Its correctional facilities are often thought of as far removed from society and in a hopeless state.
Behind Prison Walls: Unlocking a Safer South Africa is by Inspecting Judge of Correctional Services, Edwin Cameron, with Rebecca Gore and Sohela Surajpal. All three have worked at the Judicial Inspectorate for Correctional Services (JICS), South Africa’s prison oversight body.
Here are some key insights into the prison system revealed in the book:
Prisons were not a standard form of punishment in South Africa before the colonial era. They then became a key, cruel tool of the apartheid regime to oppress populations and create cheap labour.
Democracy came with a strong set of laws and structures for a reformed system.
Surajpal, at the book launch, said, “Even though we started out with this grand vision of reform under Mandela and other leaders who were imprisoned, we made a U-turn.”
The authors pinpoint key moments, such as fear of the post-apartheid crime wave and corruption under Jacob Zuma’s presidency, that contributed to the poor state of prisons.
The authors, through their work at JICS, have had insight into the conditions in correctional facilities that few South Africans outside of the system experience.
The book goes into detail about widespread staff shortages and overcrowding, and a lack of dignified conditions. This is not only due to bad management or implementation, but also because of particular legal and political interventions.
Harsh bail laws and minimum sentencing have greatly contributed to overcrowding. While the departments of education and social development used to work closely with correctional services, these relationships have weakened over time.
“We cannot deal with crime and violence properly until we deal with our overcrowded prisons,” says Gore.
“We keep making the same mistake,” Gore says. “We keep passing harsher laws, longer sentences, tougher bail, and tougher parole, but that’s not making us safer.”
The authors argue that harsher corrective strategies do not result in lower crime rates or better prisons. These tend to punish poor people and shield rich or socially connected people. For example, drug crimes committed by lower-income groups are more likely to be prosecuted, and high bail amounts that poorer people cannot pay only lead to overpopulating prisons.
Gore says that while there are about 165,000 prisoners in South Africa, well-connected or powerful criminals, including gang leaders, are often not in the system. “Our prisons, as they currently function, are not solving that distribution problem. They’re actually perpetuating it in many respects,” she says.
The authors say that change is possible. “Our high rates of crime don’t point to an evil society, but to a society suffering and struggling. And that doesn’t have the structures, support and institutions that it needs to behave differently,” Surajpal says.
The book suggests practical steps to improve correctional services.
Judge Cameron says, “Prisons deflect our attention from the urgent work that we have to do long before we even think of prisons.”
This includes improving policing, starting with better, more resourced crime intelligence. It also means curbing gender-based violence by improving the way these are dealt with by police and the justice system, and by offering meaningful social support.
We can reduce prison overcrowding by reducing the number of remand detainees through bail reform. We also need to reduce the number of long sentences and decriminalise some crimes. Cameron also said that prison conditions must be changed by scrapping solitary confinement and improving healthcare and treatment of prisoners.
The book’s assessment of the correctional system is not all bad. It highlights some useful steps already taken by the justice system and non-profit organisations to improve the system.
There are some actions in the pipeline, like a bill to make JICS more independent, that may fast-track change.
Cameron says, “The biggest public policy mistake of the last 125 years was the war on drugs. The criminalisation of drugs has wrought havoc on our country.”