South Africa is spending about R1.5-million a day to keep 3 300 poor accused people behind bars because they cannot afford bail of less than R1 000, even though they have not been convicted of any crime.
The daily bill, calculated from Correctional Services Minister Pieter Groenewald’s figure of R463 a day for each detainee, means taxpayers could fork out about R45.8 million a month, or more than R557 million a year, on the detention of people whose continued incarceration is linked to bail poverty.
Groenewald’s revelation has thrown a spotlight on how poverty, court delays and remand detention are fuelling a prison overcrowding crisis that human rights watchdogs warn is trampling on inmates’ dignity and constitutional rights.
South African prisons have more than 160 000 inmates, including about 63 000 remand detainees awaiting trial or sentencing. Pollsmoor, Johannesburg and Kgosi Mampuru prisons are among the correctional centres that are highly populated.
Speaking during a parliamentary questions session for the peace and security cluster last Wednesday, Groenewald said the Department of Correctional Services (DCS) had 107 000 beds available for inmates. Sentenced inmates alone occupied at least 106 280 of them.
He said the main pressure came from remand detainees, who were held in custody while awaiting trial. That had pushed overcrowding levels at correctional facilities to 58%.
“We have to accommodate all the people who are arrested and sent to correctional services,” Groenewald said, adding that the department had referred 8 849 bail review cases in the previous financial year but succeeded in only 1 278.
That means about 14.4% of the bail review cases succeeded, while 7 571 cases, or 85.6%, did not result in successful reviews.
A bail review system is the legal process used to reconsider whether an accused person should remain in custody, especially where they are awaiting trial and cannot afford bail.
“Overcrowding undermines the constitutional rights of detained persons, including the rights to dignity, humane conditions of detention, healthcare, safety and rehabilitation as protected under section 35 of the Constitution,” SAHRC spokesperson Wisani Baloyi said.
He said overcrowding placed severe pressure on infrastructure, healthcare services, sanitation, security, rehabilitation programmes and staff capacity and could amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment if left unaddressed.
“Sustainable interventions are therefore required to protect the rights and dignity of all persons within correctional environments. The deprivation of liberty does not diminish the state’s constitutional obligations towards detained persons.”
Baloyi said overcrowding delayed parole processing, rehabilitation assessments, correctional programmes and the release of remand detainees, particularly those accused of less serious offences.
“Such prolonged detention raises constitutional concerns relating to equality before the law, access to justice and the right to a fair and speedy trial. There are also severe social and economic consequences for detainees and their families,” he said.
Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru) spokesperson Richard Mamabolo said: “Such conditions place enormous pressure on both inmates and correctional officials, creating an environment that increases tension, violence, gang activity, the spread of communicable diseases and makes rehabilitation significantly more difficult.”
Popcru said overcrowding could not be addressed by correctional services alone; it required coordinated interventions across the entire criminal justice value chain.
The union called for greater use of non-custodial sentencing, alternative dispute resolution, diversion programmes for minor offences and expedited case management for remand detainees.
Mamabolo said the presence of many foreign nationals awaiting the finalisation of their cases also showed the need for closer cooperation between correctional services, home affairs, the courts and law enforcement agencies.
Correctional services spokesperson Singabakho Nxumalo said the department was using sentence management, remand reviews, offender placement and interdepartmental engagements to reduce overcrowding and expand bed space.
Nxumalo said it was misleading to treat overcrowding as a correctional services problem.
He said the problem was driven by arrest patterns, prosecutorial readiness, case postponements, court backlogs, bail affordability and the prolonged detention of undocumented foreign nationals who could, in some cases, be processed through immigration channels rather than criminal detention.
Metro-based centres such as Pollsmoor, Johannesburg and Kgosi Mampuru were particularly affected by urban migration and socio-economic pressures, which often increased crime, he said.
Nxumalo said the department’s interventions were often limited by court postponements, incomplete investigations, prosecutorial readiness, judicial scheduling and the inability of accused persons to meet bail conditions.
Nxumalo said bail decisions belonged to the courts and the DCS could not interfere with judicial discretion or influence bail conditions.
He said such detentions often reflected broader socio-economic vulnerabilities, administrative delays or unresolved legal representation issues, which required criminal justice reforms rather than correctional administration alone.
- South Africa is spending about R1.5-million a day to keep 3 300 poor accused people behind bars because they cannot afford bail of less than R1 000, even though they have not been convicted of any crime.
- The daily bill, calculated from Correctional Services Minister Pieter Groenewald’s figure of R463 a day for each detainee, means taxpayers could fork out about R45.8 million a month, or more than R557 million a year, on the detention of people whose continued incarceration is linked to bail poverty.
- Groenewald’s revelation has thrown a spotlight on how poverty, court delays and remand detention are fuelling a prison overcrowding crisis that human rights watchdogs warn is trampling on inmates’ dignity and constitutional rights.
- South African prisons have more than 160 000 inmates, including about 63 000 remand detainees awaiting trial or sentencing.
- Pollsmoor, Johannesburg and Kgosi Mampuru prisons are among the correctional centres that are highly populated.
