Detention Justice Forum Calls for Urgent Action In Response to Justice Edwin Cameron’s Report on “Sickening Conditions” in Pollsmoor Prison Constitutional Court Judge, Justice Edwin Cameron released a report this week on his visit to Pollsmoor Remand Detention Facility and Pollsmoor Women’s Correctional Centre. The visit was undertaken in April Continue Reading
12 JUNE 2014, We wish to clarify a statement published in the Times yesterday “TB is killing us”. SECTION27 is quoted as stating: “The government knows what to do to slow the spread of TB but [it] lacks political will.” We wish to state that we were quoted incorrectly and Continue Reading
MEMORANDUM: A PRISON SENTENCE SHOULD NOT BE A DEATH SENTENCE: WE NEED A SERIOUS, URGENT, PUBLIC AND MONITORED PLAN TO STOP TB IN PRISONS To be delivered by the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and SECTION27 to a representative of the Department of Justice and Correctional Services (DJCS) at the SA Continue Reading
The Department of Correctional Services (DCS) and the Department of Health (DoH) jointly announced the Guidelines for the Management
of Tuberculosis, Human Immunodeficiency Virus and Sexually-‐Transmitted Infections in Correctional Centres, 2013 (the Guidelines) on World
TB Day, 24 March 2013. Centre for Applied Legal Studies. WIts Justice Project, SECTION27 and Treatment Action Campaign wrote a joint submission
Today, the Constitutional Court overturned a ruling of the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) in the matter of Dudley Lee vs. the Minister of Correctional Services.
A week after Cabinet adopted the Operational Plan for Comprehensive HIV and AIDS Care, Management and Treatment for South Africa (“the Operational Plan”) in November 2003, MM – an inmate at Westville Correctional Centre and the seventh applicant in the case of EN v Government of Republic of South Africa (No 1) – was diagnosed withoesophageal candidiasis, an AIDS-defining illness.
Since October 2005 the TAC and the AIDS Law Project (ALP) have assisted HIV positive inmates at Westville Prison in acquiring ARVs that have routinely been refused to them by prison authorities. Situated in Kwazulu Natal, one of the provinces most severely affected by HIV/AIDS, Westville had steadfastly prevented TAC or other NGOs from conducting treatment workshops, treatment literacy programs, or any form of HIV awareness training.
We meet HIV positive prisoners.
The ALP and Treatment Action Campaign made a submission to the Jali Commission in March 2004 entitled “HIV/AIDS in Prison: Treatment, Intervention, and Reform” [NOTE: LINK TO EARLIER SUBMISSION]. The submission dealt with the origins and causes of HIV infection in prisons, HIV prevalence in prisons, the HIV/AIDS policy of the Department of Correctional Services, including early release, and finally made recommendations, including several on the early release of prisoners with HIV/AIDS.
In prison, HIV/AIDS exacerbates existing problems and also creates new ones, yet the potential for far-reaching positive impact remains. Prisons are an intervention opportunity to reach a segment of the population, which is most likely to need government services related to HIV/AIDS and is also least likely to receive them through any other channel. Most people who end up in prison come from marginalised communities with limited access to health, education, and/or other sources of social welfare. For many of these people, their interaction with the criminal justice system will be their most extensive exposure to public services of any kind. Without an appropriate response to HIV/AIDS in prisons, the potential consequences will be increasingly tragic for both prisoners and the communities they represent.