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IX. WORK

Prison labor has historically played an important role in the country's economy. In the nineteenth century, prisoners built roads and all the major mountain passes. Unskilled prison labor was used in gold and diamond mining. After the 1950s, with the abolition of the sentence of hard labor, prisoners were no longer used for mining, but they continued to be hired out to the private sector, especially agriculture. Under a variety of arrangements, farmers were able to hire prison labor cheaply. For example, a network of prison farm outstations was built by groups of farmers and handed over to the authorities, who kept these institutions stocked with prisoners. Farmers paid very reduced fees for the labor thus obtained. In addition, a system of "parole" into the farms existed for short-term prisoners. These systems were sources of strong criticism from South Africa's trading partners as well as from the human rights community.¹⁰¹ South Africa was repeatedly accused of slavery by means of its prison system. The extent of the problem can be illustrated by a case of a farmer from northern Transvaal, accused of beating his naked "parole" prisoners. At his hearing he testified that between 1972 and 1977, no fewer than 4,000 prisoners worked on his farm.¹⁰²

Under pressure from the international community on human rights grounds, and on the grounds that the outstation system violated the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), South Africa dismantled the system allowing the hire of prison labor by the private sector in the late 1980s. However, prisoners are still released on "parole" to work in private sector businesses, where they may receive little or no remuneration. Prisoners' rights activists stated to us that the system still allowed abuse.

Within the prison system itself, prisoners have for a long period been employed on prison-owned farms. In the past, the prison system has also employed inmates in various forms of hard labor, including stonework. For example, political prisoners on Robben Island worked

mainly in quarries. A particularly notorious place was the quarry in Barberton, where prisoners from privilege group D worked in cages, meant to prevent them from assaulting each other. On December 29, 1982, several prisoners died there, allegedly of heat prostration. The quarry no longer exists.

Prisons are supposed to be self-sufficient. In 1991, amendments to prison legislation introduced a new policy of running the prison system on business principles. A White Paper issued by the Departments of Justice and Correctional Services, on which the amendments were based, stated, in the section titled "Economizing of the Department of Correctional Services," "The goal of this strategy is to strive towards the optimization of resources in order to bring about greater cost-effectiveness, to optimize self-sufficiency and to generate income for own requirements."¹⁰³

Despite their abusive history and recent commitment to commercialization, South African prisons have had a theoretical commitment to the rehabilitative character of prison labor, almost since they were established. Since 1959, the functions of the prison service have been stated to include the duty "so far as practicable, to apply such treatment to convicted prisoners ... as may lead to their reformation and rehabilitation and to train them in habits of industry and labour."¹⁰⁴ The aim of the "treatment and training" is to equip the prisoner for, and to cultivate a desire to, lead "an honest and industrious life" after his or her release; and "to develop self-respect and a sense of responsibility."¹⁰⁵ Most prisoners and ex-prisoners that we spoke to had absorbed to a striking extent the idea that prison should rehabilitate them for return to a non-criminal life outside the prison; but most also expressed extreme discontent with the work and training actually available to them while in prison.

South African prisoners, with the exception of pre-trial detainees, are theoretically obliged to work, although employment is not in fact available to all prisoners.¹⁰⁶ Refusal to work is a disciplinary infraction, though a medical officer must certify that a prisoner is fit to work and has the power to exempt a prisoner from working.¹⁰⁷ Most prisoners are not paid for their labor, though some in more skilled employment may receive a small gratuity, amounting to the equivalent of a few dollars a month. In several prisons, prisoners complained to us that they were exploited and made to work too hard. Several prisoners and ex-prisoners alleged that they had been forced to work while they were ill.

Medium security male prisoners may be employed as agricultural laborers on farms belonging to the Correctional Services, which produce products mostly for use within the prison system; elsewhere, they may work as cleaners, gardeners, or maintenance staff on or off the prison premises. Prisoners also work in construction and repair of prison facilities and prison staff housing (many white staff members live on prison grounds); those with the necessary skills may work on repairing cars or machinery belonging to the prison system or other government agencies.

Prisoners in maximum security prisons (about 15 percent of the prison population¹⁰⁸) usually do not work, and may as a consequence be confined to their cells for all but a half-hour- or hour-long exercise period a day. Many prisoners in maximum security institutions complained to us about their inactivity and boredom, often stating that violence and gang activity in the prison were made worse by the lack of other occupation, or that the lack of work would make them unemployable once they were released. In Brandvlei maximum security prison, while some prisoners did work on some days, they complained that the work consisted only of chopping wood.

Female prisoners are usually employed in laundry and sewing activities. For example, in the Durban prison, women did the laundry not only for their own facility but also for the four male prisons and the staff. In Kroonstad, women were sewing mattress covers, pajamas, and their own uniforms; others did the laundry for the whole prison. The women in prison in Umtata, Transkei, were also responsible for laundry for both men's and women's prisons.

Some short-term prisoners with low security classifications are also employed in police stations, generally in the maintenance of police lockups. They are transferred daily to stations located near prisons, or may live for as long as two months in the police lockup itself. They may also be used in the maintenance of court rooms, or in similar tasks within the justice system.

Vocational training is available to a small proportion of prisoners and almost exclusively to the male inmates. According to prison officials, an inmate has to be serving a sentence of at least four years' imprisonment in order to be eligible for vocational training. As of June 30, 1991, a total of 2,581 prisoners were receiving vocational training, nine of them were women.¹⁰⁹ About 3 percent of the prison population was therefore receiving vocational training at that time. Trade tests confirming that an individual has received training are available to the prisoners in theory, though some prisoners complained about access to these tests in practice.

According to officials in Kroonstad, until racial integration began to be implemented, only whites had access to the impressive set of workshops providing vocational training in the Medium B prison. Even though this training is now nominally available to all races, during our visit we saw predominantly white prisoners in the workshops, even though whites constituted a fraction of the overall population of the prison complex. In other prisons, workshops were usually small in size, sufficient only to supply the needs of the prison rather than to provide training for a significant number of prisoners. Some prisoners were, however, being trained in these workshops; an apparently disproportionate number of these prisoners were white.

Vocational training for women at Kroonstad was limited to hairdressing, and they did not have access to the impressive workshops available to the men.

Prisoners who enter prison already qualified in some way C as plumbers, carpenters, electricians, and so forth C are likely to be employed within the prison system. As such, they do not receive further training, but they are paid a nominal fee for their work, and may receive a certificate on release confirming their employment in that capacity.