V. Poor Prison Conditions

“The people in prison are in conflict with the law, but they are South Sudanese, and they are human beings. They need to be treated with dignity.”

–Michael Makuei, minister of parliamentary affairs, November 2011.[296]

The poor living conditions and treatment of prisoners in South Sudan compound the injustices related to how and why they are detained. Infrastructure is rudimentary and in some prisons, damaged or crumbling. Cells are severely overcrowded and lack sufficient ventilation. Without proper nutrition or hygiene, prisoners are vulnerable to illness and disease. When they fall sick, they rarely receive proper care. They are also routinely beaten and chained.

All prisoners deserve respect based on their inherent dignity as human beings.[297] When South Sudan incarcerates an individual, it undertakes the responsibility to assure that that person is placed in accommodation that “is of such size, and is equipped with adequate lighting, ventilation, sanitary installations, bedding, clothing and other equipment, as is necessary for the preservation of the prisoner’s physical and mental health,” as clearly stated in the Prison Act.[298]

Conditions in South Sudan’s prisons clearly do not comply with international or domestic law and standards on prisoners’ welfare, and much of what Human Rights Watch witnessed violates the prohibition on inhuman and degrading conditions. Government officials, especially the Prisons Service, readily acknowledge the urgent need for improvement. Some of these improvements will require a significant increase in funds, over the long-term. Others require increased coordination, particularly between the Ministry of Health and the Prisons Service, and between the Prisons Service and the Police. Issues such as corporal punishment and chaining can for the most part be remedied through policy changes and the effective communication of proper disciplinary and restraint methods to prison staff.

Crumbling Infrastructure and Overcrowding

The infrastructure of South Sudan’s prisons is dilapidated and the prisons are becoming increasingly overcrowded. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has overseen renovations in some prisons, but in others there have been none at all. There is an entirely new prison in Bor and partial renovations are complete or underway in Aweil, Wau, Yambio, Juba, Rumbek, and Malakal. In Wau, for example, some cells have been reconstructed, the walls around the prison were reinforced, new zinc sheeting was put on the roof and a clinic was constructed. Bentiu prison, however, has not benefited from renovations and was described by William Kaya, president of the High Court in Bentiu as “more of a warehouse than a prison.”[299] The wards consist of two large windowless rooms constructed entirely of corrugated iron sheets, and three other structures with mud walls and thatched roofs. Tonj prison, which houses over 300 prisoners, was constructed by the British in the 1940s and has never been modernized. The cells have no electricity, running water, or toilet facilities.

Prisons outside of state capitals are often made of temporary materials. Wanjok county prison, which houses over 250 prisoners, is surrounded only by a grass fence. About 60 inmates sleep in a large thatched tukul whose roof is in a state of disrepair, and there are holes in the roof of the cell where the female prisoners sleep, giving them little protection from the rain. In Malek Alel county prison, female inmates share a tukul with the prison’s supply of sorghum, as there is no separate space for storing food.

This limited infrastructure increasingly houses a steadily growing number of inmates. Aweil prison was built in the 1920’s for 150 inmates. In May 2008 there were 191 prisoners, and in April 2011, the number rose to 401.[300] Wau prison was built in 1942 to house 100 prisoners. In May 2008 it held 278 and by April 2011 there were 524 inmates living there.[301] In a similar interval of three years, the population of Juba prison went from 553 to 857,[302] and in Rumbek, from 234 to 547.[303]

Prisoners in almost all prisons visited by Human Rights Watch complained that due to overcrowding, they have difficulty sleeping at night. Locked in dormitories with so many other people and with poor ventilation, they said the heat is extreme and that they have trouble breathing.[304] They are packed like sardines, making sleep almost impossible. “If you try to stretch out, you will hit people,” said one prisoner.[305] “If someone moves another prisoner’s blanket, then a fight will break out,” said another.[306] Occasionally, prisoners reported being forced to sleep in turns.[307]

Many sleep on concrete or dirt floors, often with little more than a piece of cardboard, an empty food sack, or a ragged sheet. Those who have mattresses have generally acquired them from outside the prison. A prisoner in Yei showed Human Rights Watch skin rashes he attributed to sleeping on the bare floor. The exception to this general lack of bedding was Juba prison, where several of the wards are outfitted with bunk beds. There are, however, not enough, and in many cases two people share one bed.[308]

Because of overcrowding and insufficient infrastructure, none of the 12 prisons visited by Human Rights Watch properly segregate remand from convicted prisoners, and children from adults.[309] If in some cases these groups are separated at night, but are free to mingle during the day. The Prisons Service is even unable to ensure that female inmates are sufficiently segregated from males, and in some prisons, they are in close proximity. In Malakal, Tonj, and Bentiu, women and girls are locked into separate sleeping quarters at night, but within the same enclosure as men. In Rumbek, there is a door separating the men’s and women’s wards, but it is often ajar and Human Rights Watch saw male guards and prisoners wandering through.  Only in Juba did researchers observe that female prisoners are uniformly guarded by female officers.

Lack of Proper Food and Nutrition

Nearly every prisoner interviewed complained about prison rations. In some prisons, food is in short supply. Prisoners in Wau, Tonj, Yei, and Rumbek reported eating only once a day. There are some occasions where prisoners said they have gone a day, or even two, without any food whatsoever. The Malek Alel county prison relies on food deliveries from Aweil, the state capital, but the contractor is unreliable, explained one inmate: “If we get a sack of sorghum then we will eat it until it is finished. But after that we can wait for days before we get any more, just eating a bit of broth.”[310]

Diets consist of some combination of sorghum, beans, bread, and broth. Only in Aweil did prisoners say they eat meat on a daily basis.[311] Green vegetables or fruit are extremely rare. Prisoners complained of upset stomachs and diarrhea, which they attributed to unclean or poorly prepared food. Some fortunate prisoners said they are able to supplement prison diets by purchasing food or by having nearby relatives deliver it to the prison, but most inmates either have no money or no close relatives to bring them meals.

There are no special diets provided for pregnant or lactating women, or for children in prison with their mothers. One female prisoner in Tonj county prison gave birth to a son four days after her incarceration. Now nine-months-old, her young child is growing up sharing her daily ration of sorghum cake and beans.[312] Although prison officials in Aweil may provide one extra piece of bread and an extra piece of meat to women with children, the bread is often too hard for young children to eat.[313] In most prisons, women are allowed to purchase milk or porridge to feed their children, but few women in prison have money.

Government officials blamed inadequacy of prison diets on lack of sufficient funds. The director general of the Prisons Service told Human Rights Watch that since 2007, there has been no budget allocated by the central government to provide food in prisons.[314] State governments are thus left to budget for and organize the provision of rations on their own.[315] In some cases, not enough money reaches the prison. The Wau prison administration reported problems paying its contractors, resulting in the occasional interruption of food supplies.[316] The director of Bentiu Prison estimated he would need four times his current monthly budget to provide adequate food for the over 300 inmates at the prison.[317] “Sometimes we go without eating for a day,” said a 60- year-old widow in the women’s section of Bentiu prison.[318]

Dignity and Hygiene

It is a struggle for prisoners in South Sudan to keep themselves clean, due to insufficient facilities, water, soap, and other sanitary supplies.[319] Prisoners complained to Human Rights Watch of an acute shortage of bathing stalls for female prisoners in Aweil; [320] of bathing in a wheelbarrow in Tonj; [321] and of being forced to “spend a long time without taking a bath” in Bentiu due to limited water supplies.[322] Where provided, prisoners only receive one small piece of soap per week, and no extra provision is made for women with children. “This is not enough to wash myself, and my clothes, and my child,” said a woman on death row with her one-year-old son.[323] Sanitary pads are not provided to women; those who can afford to, purchase their own, but most use scraps of cloth.

Prisoners are generally unable “to comply with the needs of nature when necessary in a clean and decent manner,” as called for by international and domestic standards.[324] They are often locked inside their cells at night, and many dormitories do not have internal toilet facilities. “If you need to urine, you use the container [jerry can] and then in the morning, you empty it,”[325] explained one inmate in Bentiu. Diarrheal disease, common among inmates, exacerbates this limited access to toilet facilities.[326] In Tonj prison, toilets are too few; there are only two for 300 people, and prisoners have no privacy when using them as they have no doors.[327] In Aweil, the toilets are filthy; an assessment by the Northern Bahr el Ghazal state Ministry of Health reported that pit latrines were overflowing into a nearby home.[328]

There are also insufficient cleaning supplies. Interviews conducted by Human Rights Watch in October 2011 revealed that Juba prison had been without sponges or disinfectants for the previous six months, and that cells and toilets were cleaned with water alone.[329] “There are flies and everything smells of urine,” said a nurse assistant in Bentiu.[330]

Access to Health Care

South Sudan’s prisons exist in a context where the general population often does not have access to basic health care.[331] Yet in spite of its massive development challenges, South Sudan is bound to provide those it incarcerates with health conditions and care that meet certain minimum standards.[332] The Prisons Service Act, moreover, promises prisoners the right to “regular and adequate medical care,”[333] but prisoners too often receive no treatment at all.

Given the overcrowding, lack of ventilation, unhygienic conditions, poor sanitation, and poor nutrition, it is not surprising that almost every prisoner interviewed by Human Rights Watch spoke of some ailment. There were reports of skin problems at every prison: in Yei and Wanjok inmates complained of itching constantly because they live with lice or ticks,[334] and medical workers in Juba told of dermatitis and chickenpox.[335] Many inmates complained of malaria, stomach pain, headaches, fever, or diarrhea. “If one person gets sick, we all get sick,” concluded a prisoner in Malakal.[336] Indeed, very rarely would an inmate enjoy good health while incarcerated in South Sudan.

Lack of Treatment

Not a single prison visited by Human Rights Watch was equipped with a clinic able to provide basic health care.  In Tonj prison, there is no medical clinic at all, and in Bentiu, prisoners are treated out of a one-room office that cannot fit even a single bed. Those prisons that do have clinics often lack basic necessities such as running water, disinfectant, and gloves.

The supply of medicine available in prison clinics is both limited and erratic. When available, drugs consist only of pain-killers and anti-malarials,[337] and even these and other routine medical supplies often run out.[338]  Researchers met a 23-year-old woman in Cueibet county prison serving an eight-month sentence for adultery, who said her seven-month-old child was sick with malaria, but that prison officers told her the prison had no money for medication.[339] In Aweil the prison director admitted that the prison clinic had no drugs, and that inmates have died due to a lack of medicine.[340] The deputy director of Bentiu prison said: “There is a clinic here in the prison, but no medicine.”[341]

Drug shortages are hardly surprising, given that neither the Prisons Service nor the Ministry of Health assume primary responsibility for providing treatment. The director general of the Prisons Service said that the Ministry of Health is “responsible for the health of prisoners” and “supposed to supply the clinics with basic medicine.”[342] The minister of health, however, told Human Rights Watch that “daily health can be taken care of by the Prisons Service.”[343] Neither institution seems to have the available budget for medication.  This has resulted in considerable frustration at the level of the prisons.

In many cases the only way for prisoners to get medication is if they pay for it themselves. Prisoners at all facilities visited by Human Rights Watch complained that if they cannot pay, their ailments go unaddressed. A remand in Wau who had been suffering from a skin infection for the past six months said at the hospital, the doctor gave him a list of medicines that he had no money to buy.[344] In Malakal, an inmate said he was not provided any treatment for the wounds he sustained as a result of being beaten by prison guards: “They whipped me and there was blood. The doctor said I need money for the right medicine, but I did not have any money. I am still in pain.”[345]

Limited Access to Community-based Care

Where care is unavailable within the prison, inmates should be transferred to outside clinics or hospitals. But access to community-based care poses a problem for many inmates, either because officers refuse to take them for treatment[346] or because there is no available vehicle or fuel.[347]

Even if inmates arrive at an outside clinic or hospital, medical workers complain of the security risk they pose or of the fact that they are accompanied by prison guards, and are reluctant to treat them. Sometimes, discrimination is explicit and inmates are turned away. One 20-year-old convicted female said she had been to the Tonj hospital seven times, but they refused to give her medicine. She said they told her, “Why did you kill a person? I cannot give someone like you medicine.”[348]

Access to external health facilities is especially limited for remand detainees, as neither the Prisons Service nor the Police Service adequately assumes responsibility for their health. Prison authorities say and the Prisons Service Act provides that taking remands to the hospital is the responsibility of police.[349] Too often however, the police are of no help. A 16-year-old remand in Yei who complained of abdominal pain and headaches said: “I have told the prison guards I feel sick, and they took me to the police station, but the police brought me back. I have never received medication and have never seen a doctor.”[350] Sometimes even internal prison clinics are not made available to remands, leaving them with sometimes significantly less access to care than their convict counterparts.

HIV and TB

Voluntary HIV counseling and testing is rarely offered to prisoners in South Sudan, and the prevalence rate among inmates is unknown.[351] Human Rights Watch spoke with several HIV-positive inmates who were not receiving regular treatment, for many of the same reasons described above. Two inmates in Yei said they had no medicine.[352] A female inmate in Juba said she often goes weeks without treatment, and receives a different medicine each time she visits the hospital.[353] As she is on remand, the prison guards take her to the police when she needs to go to the hospital, but the police sometimes simply put her in a cell for a few days and then escort her back to the prison.[354] The prison medical assistant spoke of five other HIV-positive women who had been in prison for a month, and had not been taken to the hospital for treatment.[355]

The World Health Organization (WHO) has advised that prisons should conduct entry and regular screenings for tuberculosis.[356]  South Sudan’s prisons do not regularly test for TB, despite persistent coughing among some inmates and individually-diagnosed cases. The Prisons Service’s standing orders call for the isolation of prisoners with infectious or contagious diseases,[357] yet in Juba, the prison medical assistant told Human Rights Watch there was no space to isolate a TB-positive female inmate.[358] She was living in the same cramped dormitory as all the other female prisoners, and their children.

Deaths in Prison

Deaths in prison are clear indications of the urgency with which the health standards in prisons must be improved. The Prisons Service headquarters does not keep statistics on deaths of prisoners. Through interviews with prisoners and prison officials, researchers obtained information of some deaths, but were unable to compile comprehensive data either of the number of inmates who have died or what caused their death.

In Wau, prisoners spoke of two deaths in 2010 and one in 2011.[359] In Aweil, an assessment by the state Ministry of Health reported that there were 10 deaths in 2011.[360] A convicted prisoner there said that two of his cell-mates had died in the past year. One “got aggressive…so they [the prison administration] put him in solitary confinement, and he died there.”[361] The second had “a lot of blood in his stool and he didn’t get treatment.”[362]

According to the Bentiu prison director, about 10 to 15 inmates have died of a disease referred to locally as “rutoba,” including five in 2011.[363] Human Rights Watch interviewed one inmate, a former SPLA soldier condemned to death, who told us that due to this illness, he had been unable to walk for almost a year. First, his legs swelled and eventually, they were unable to support his body weight. At night, his heart and legs hurt, and he has difficulty sleeping. Other prisoners must carry him when he wants to move, including when he needs to relieve himself:

At night, there is a jerry can. When I need to defecate, they carry me and put me on the top of the jerry can and I use the bathroom. It is very difficult, but there is no other way.

Four of his cell-mates have died of the same illness, and two others, like him, cannot walk. “This disease kills many in the prison,” he said.[364] The prison nurse said that no treatment was available at the prison clinic.[365]

The continued detention of seriously ill prisoners, where measures cannot to be taken to address or accommodate their illness, may constitute cruel and inhuman treatment or punishment.[366] In cases such as the situations described above, the continued detention of patients in acute need of care and unable to receive it in prison, should be considered inhuman and degrading punishment and be promptly ended.

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All prisons are clearly in need of trained medical staff and supplies to treat at least the most common of illnesses. The Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Interior should develop a detailed plan for the improvement of prison health services and conditions, and clarify their respective responsibilities. The Ministry of Interior should clarify the responsibilities of the Prisons Service and the Police Service with respect to the health of remands.

Punishments that Amount to Torture or Ill-treatment

Corporal Punishment

Under international and domestic law, prisoners must not be subject to disciplinary measures that constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.[367] The UN Standard Minimum Rules explicitly prohibit all use of corporal punishment.[368] The Transitional Constitution clearly grants children the right to be free from corporal punishment, but neither the Prisons Service Act nor the Prisons Service’s standing orders explicitly restrict the use of corporal punishment against all prisoners.[369]

In South Sudan beating prisoners appears to be part of routine operating practices. Prisoners in all facilities said both prison officials and other prisoners with disciplinary authority beat them with sticks, canes, or whips. The most common sanction consisted of 5 to 10 lashes for fighting, quarrelling, or disobeying prison guards. Attempting escape, drinking alcohol, or smuggling contraband into the prison results in heavier punishments, sometimes along with periods of solitary confinement.[370]

In several prisons, guards themselves recounted administering beatings.  One in Wau said:  “If there is a fight or a disturbance…we will punish the prisoners at fault with either solitary confinement, beating, or both.”[371] In Tonj, guards unabashedly walked around the prison compound carrying whips. One of them told Human Rights Watch: “We have rules. The prisoners are like children. The first time they do something wrong, you must explain. It is only afterwards that you can beat [them].”[372]

Such punishments sometimes have significant health impacts. Two men in Malakal said beatings left them wounded and bleeding.[373] A female inmate in Juba told researchers that six women were caned when they arrived at the prison because they were accused of adultery.[374] Three inmates in Yei independently described a sanction for serious misbehavior: a prisoner is stripped naked, doused with salt-water, and beaten severely 25 to 50 times. He is then left in solitary confinement for seven days, denied food and water on the first day, and beaten every morning.[375]  One remand said he had been punished in this manner three times and that once, he urinated blood for two days.[376] Female inmates in Yei said if they disobey orders, prison guards take them behind the women’s ward and beat them.[377] “It is painful. You cry. There is swelling.”[378]

Chained for Extended Periods of Time

International and domestic standards provide that restraints should not be applied as punishment; they should only be a “temporary control measure” and not used any longer than is strictly necessary.[379] The UN Standard Minimum Rules specifically prohibit the use of chains or irons,[380] but there is no parallel provision under domestic standards.[381]

Many prisoners in South Sudan live in heavy shackles, sometimes temporarily but often permanently. In several facilities, prisoners and prison officials told researchers that inmates were placed in leg chains or chained to trees as a form of punishment for various kinds of disobedience.[382] In all facilities visited, Human Rights Watch observed that chains are placed permanently on certain classes of prisoners. Prisoners condemned to death, of which there are close to 200 in South Sudan, are permanently chained.[383] Inmates accused of or convicted of murder are also often chained. According to an inmate in Cueibet county, those who have committed adultery or stolen cows are all shackled, as are new arrivals during their first two or three days in prison.[384]

Wearing chains 24 hours a day is extremely uncomfortable, and many inmates live in them for years. A remand in Yei prison accused of murder said: “They [chains] get very hot, and they cause you to reduce in weight…You must also bathe with the chains on, [although] you cannot take off your pants.”[385] The irons frequently cause wounds around the ankles, which sometimes become infected.[386] “These chains,” protested a prison nurse, “are not fit for human beings.”[387] This practice not only contravenes international and domestic standards for the use of restraints, it also constitutes cruel and inhuman treatment.

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The Prisons Service should immediately halt the use of corporal punishment for all prisoners as well as the use of chains and leg irons as instruments of restraint. The Prisons Service should prohibit both practices in its Standing Orders and regulations and provide prison officers with additional training in appropriate discipline methods in addition to being made aware of the prohibition against corporal punishment. It should end the practice of applying restraints as punishment and ensure that tools of restraint are used only temporarily, and when absolutely necessary. As the primary rationale for restraining prisoners is to prevent escape, infrastructure development projects should include the fortification of prison perimeters. 

Prison Labor

Prisoners work on prison construction projects, tend prison farms, and are sometimes dispatched to the private homes of senior prison officials. International and domestic standards place important constraints on the nature of prison labor. Prison labor must not be afflictive but rather vocational or rehabilitative in nature.[388] The work must not be driven by motives for financial profit.[389] No prisoner should be forced to work for private entities, such as private landowners.[390] When working for the government, only convicts and not remands may work, they must be medically assessed to check if they are fit and healthy for work,[391] and they must be treated and remunerated fairly on terms close to what free workers receive.[392]

While prisoners told Human Rights Watch that they want to work rather than sit idle, practices observed in South Sudan’s prisons raise concerns, particularly in light of plans to increase prison labor. The Prisons Service’s strategic plan envisions five mechanized farms, rice production, a coffee farm, poultry and dairy production, and fishing camps.[393] Such work can provide an important source of physical activity and vocational training for inmates. But currently, prison labor is almost always unremunerated. On occasion, inmates are given a few pounds for a day’s work, but are more often expected to labor for no pay. Prisoners in Tonj prison told Human Rights Watch that they are sometimes beaten for refusing to work, even when they say they are ill.[394]

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Before moving forward with plans to increase the involvement of prisoners in productive labor, the Prisons Service should ensure that prisoners’ labor never constitutes forced labor and that there is a fair and transparent system for remunerating inmates and for administering prisoner accounts. This would allow prisoners to contribute to support of family members outside of prison, provide income from which they could pay debts or fines, and have funds to facilitate their post-incarceration reintegration. There should also be financial systems for accounting for funds raised through prison labor and a zero-tolerance policy against beating inmates. Where prisoners are involved with farming, the food produced through farm labor should be used to supplement prisoner diets.