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There is little doubt that the most serious problem facing those responsible for South Africa’s prison system is overcrowding. South Africa’s prisons were designed to accommodate 100,668 inmates. Currently they struggle to house 172,271 prisoners. Overcrowding exacerbates the problems which face prison administrators worldwide: gangs, violence, sexual assault, public health problems and escape attempts. As such it makes managing a prison difficult, and reducing the chances of re-offending almost impossible. To make matters worse, South Africa’s prisons are also under-staffed, badly designed and structurally crumbling.
Faced with these challenges and the budgetary limitations in the criminal justice sector, the Department of Correctional Services has identified the privatisation of prisons as one solution. This is a strategy that has been adopted by governments around the world in response to an increasing prison population and the lack of available funds.
As part of the Criminal Justice Monitor which tracks performance and strategy in the criminal justice system, the ISS commissioned this monograph to assist among others the policy makers and practitioners in the Departments of Correctional Services, Public Works and Finance to understand the pros and cons of prison privatisation and the inherent challenges of such a strategy. Privatisation is being practised in several countries and South Africans have the opportunity to learn from these experiences.
The aim of this monograph is to present an overview of the main issues in the privatisation debate and draw lessons for South Africa’s privatisation process. It is not difficult to see the benefit of privatisation in this country. As the author, KC Goyer points out, "Private prisons will necessarily be an improvement on public prisons because it would be almost impossible to perform any worse". Nevertheless, there are important considerations of cost and accountability that will need to be carefully monitored by those responsible for imprisonment in South Africa.
Antoinette Louw
Head of the Crime and Justice Programme
Institute for Security Studies, Pretoria
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