Prison conditions deplorable

But analysts warned that the number of prisoners paroled is still too insignificant for the country to wish away the multifaceted challenges facing its correctional services.
The Zimbabwe Prisons Services (ZPS) has admitted as much in a statement released on September 2.
Acting public relations officer, Elizabeth Banda, said the ZPS has been weighed down by a myriad of challenges compromising the effective and efficient administration of the penitentiaries.
“Due to inadequate financial resources coupled with the unfavourable economic environment, the ZPS has faced challenges in fulfilling its set objectives and statutory obligations, which include the provision of prisoners’ rations, clothing and bedding, toiletries among others,” reads part of the statement.
The pardoning of the nearly 1 500 prisoners —  has exposed the cash-strapped government’s failure to administer Zimbabwe’s 55 jails, observers say.
In a way, it also brings to the fore the shortcomings of the justice delivery process that is condemning offenders to the dungeons for committing petty crimes, clogging the system.
Analysts told The Financial Gazette this week that the challenges highlighted by the ZPS were just the tip of the iceberg. The full story is yet to be told.
Some of the problems that were not highlighted by Banda for fear of reprisals include the death in custody of inmates suffering from treatable diseases owing to the lack of medical care; overcrowding and unhygienic conditions.
There are also reports of inmates being sodomised in prisons.
Amnesty International says that nearly 1 000 of Zimbabwe’s 13 000 prisoners died in the first six months of the year in prisons that are overcrowded and filthy.
The government has been under a barrage of criticism from human rights activists for the dire situation in the country’s prisons.
Dire prison conditions have turned the cells into breeding grounds for cholera, diahorrea and tuberculosis, compounding the already high HIV rate in a nation where 15,6 percent of adults carry the virus that causes AIDS.
In June, the government buckled to pressure and allowed the International Federation of the Red Cross to bring blankets, food, medicine and other supplies to the prisons.
The Khami maximum security prison in Bulawayo had its water supplies cut off recently due to unpaid bills.
The prison service reportedly owes US$230 000 in unpaid water bills.
In the House of Assembly, Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa faces grilling over remand prisoners in Mutare who have spent two years or more without being brought to court due to the crisis in the justice delivery system.
Edison Chihota the chief executive of the Zimbabwe Association for Crime P-revention and Rehabilitation of the Offender (ZACRO) believes that some of the released prisoners may haunt the society again.
He said the panacea to the crisis facing the ZPS lies in revamping its administration citing the fact that most of the farms belonging to ZPS are lying idle yet inmates are starving.
Some of the farms, such as the Chikurubi prison farm, can actually grow horticultural crops that can be exported to raise funds for the prisons.
“It is not about releasing people. It’s about asking ourselves how we can properly a-dminister the institutions. How, they (prisoners) can produce food for themselves. These are the issues that need to be looked at,” said Chihota.
“Twenty prisoners attached to the Tobacco Research Board were trained in growing tobacco but will be released with no input into the system. If you go to the university there is bonding so that the institution benefits from those it trains,” he added.
The chairperson of the Zimbabwe L-awyers for Human Rights, Andrew M-akoni, said while there was nothing amiss with pardoning inmates, local courts can also alleviate the congestion in the country’s jails if they desist from sending petty offenders to prison.
There are a number of people languishing in local prisons and thereby straining the system who could otherwise be fined, or ordered to do community service, or have a suspended sentence.
There are also some prisoners who are good candidates for bail being denied freedom on the grounds of political affiliation.
“There is nothing wrong with releasing prisoners on compassionate grounds such as food shortages. It has happened in other jurisdictions such as during the festive season. However, in our situation the courts could help by not sending petty offenders to prison,” said Makoni.
The human rights activist’s assertions were in sync with observations made by ZACRO in its report last year which said: “The majority of prisoners in Zimbabwe are relatively poor people. These often lack resources or funds to cater for legal representation.”
In the same report, ZACRO noted that although Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that, everyone including prisoners has the right to education, most inmates are unable to pursue education in prisons.
In recent years, some inmates have seen their freedom of expression being curtailed through a ban on reading certain publications or newspapers or to communicate due to political intolerance.
The release of the 1 500 prisoners comes six months after Chinamasa told the House of Assembly that the country’s prison system was failing to provide rations to inmates at the country’s correctional facilities as stipulated by Section 50, second schedule to Prisons (General) Regulations of 1996 due to inadequate funding, resulting in widespread malnutrition.
The latest pardoning of prisoners  applies to inmates under the age of 18, those  sentenced to three years and below who would have served a quarter of their sentence, all terminally ill prisoners and all inmates sentenced to life in prison or to long terms of imprisonment on or before May 31 1989 who have served 20 years or more.
The ZPS said those serving either death penalties or a sentence imposed by a court martial or sentences for stock theft, armed robbery and carjacking would not be released. Remission of sentences will also not apply to those sentenced for murder, treason, rape or any other sexual offence.