Jail contact visits on hit list
2004-11-19 08:46
Pretoria - All contact visits in prisons might be banned in future after the hostage drama in C-Max Prison in which five prisoners shot and killed the prison chief and a senior staffer.
Mandla Mkabela, area commissioner for Pretoria, told the parliamentary portfolio committee for correctional services this was one of the alternatives Correctional Services Minister Ngconde Balfour was investigating.
He is trying to improve security measures in prisons and already has banned contact visits in C-Max.
Meanwhile, the department still does not know how warders succeeded in smuggling firearms into C-Max for prisoners on two occasions.
Although two warders were arrested for their alleged involvement in an escape attempt in May, the department does not know who helped them get the firearms into the prison.
James Hunt, acting chief at C-Max, explained to the portfolio committee on Thursday that the warders should be searched by colleagues before they are allowed into the prison.
Dennis Bloem, chairperson of the portfolio committee, said: "It is extremely worrying. This means there is a chain of warders involved with this. It makes one wonder... even the management do not know how the firearm got into the prison."
According to Benson Fihla, an African National Congress member of the portfolio committee who served a 14-year prison sentence on Robben Island, the old prison was safer than C-Max.
"There, everything prisoners received, even a loaf of bread, was searched and they were kept in isolation," he said.
Mkabela also announced that the five prisoners who were responsible for the hostage drama at C-Max were members of the Air Force gang; it was an honour for a member of this gang to successfully escape from prison.
According to Mkabela, gang members who were arrested again after a successful escape were then "promoted" to the level of general.
Gang members are escape artists
"The Air Force members are in the most prisons countrywide.
"It's not possible for the department to isolate these prisoners from each other," he told the portfolio committee.
He was reacting to a question concerning action being taken to prevent extremely dangerous criminals from getting together to plan escapes.
Mkabela said this gang specialised in escape attempts.
He said the department knew which prisoners belonged to the gang because they had to indicate this before they were taken into C-Max.