Change and Continuity in South African Prisons (From Comparing Prison Systems: Toward a Comparative and International Penology, P 401-426, 1998, Robert P. Weiss, Nigel South, eds. - See NCJ-178009)

• NCJ Number: 178018
• Author(s): Dirk van Zyl Smit
• Date Published: 1998
• Length: 26 pages
• Sale Source: Gordon and Breach Publishers
• Publication Format: Book (Softbound)
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: Netherlands
• Note: International Studies in Global Change: Vol. 8

Annotation

This chapter examines the South African prison system during the last 20 years.

Abstract

The history of the South African prison system in the last 20 years is a history of both change and continuity. The system, part of the state apparatus of a minority government which applied explicitly racial criteria, was governed by a highly restrictive legal regime which included explicitly racist elements. Change in this regard has been significant and on occasion has anticipated change in the national political structure. However, the monolithic structure of the national prison system remains. It continues to imprison roughly the same number of people drawn from the same social groups as in the past and to hold them in conditions which in practice have not changed significantly. While there has been a significant decline in the number of offenders sentenced to terms of imprisonment in the past 20 years, this decline has been offset by an increase in the length of sentences served, leading to the gradual growth in overall numbers of prisoners serving sentences of imprisonment. Prison gangs continue to terrorize and exploit their fellow inmates, overcrowding remains acute in many prisons and there is a decline in control in at least some prisons. Tables, notes, references, case law, statutes