Large scale raid at Pollsmoor Correctional Facility

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Correctional Services officials together with members of the Anti-Gang Unit and Crime Intelligence have conducted a search and seizure operation at the Pollsmoor Correctional Facility in Cape Town. Over 400 new Correctional Services recruits assisted with the raid.

Dagga, cellphones, chargers and self-made weapons were among the contraband seized. More than 460 recruits were part of the search operation, to gain work experience.

Correctional Services National Commissioner Makgothi Thobakgale, says the contraband gets into the facility through some of their members and through visitation by community and family members.

He says sometimes inmates also manage to smuggle in the contraband if they were at court and not properly searched before returning to their cells.

“Illegal substances have to be reported to police so there’ll be another case, with a further charge. But apart from that we’ve got a disciplinary code inside correctional services and there are privileges that will be withheld from that kind of an offender” says Thobakgale.

Prison warder arrested in drug bust:

Drug Bust

Thobakgale says it is very disappointing that some of their own are involved in illegal activities. He says a correctional services official was arrested at Vanrhynsdorp on the Cape West Coast recently for the possession of more than a million rands worth of drugs.

“She was actually apprehended while she was in the act at her house, in the act of packing. The tip-off came from a roadblock done by metro police. That roadblock led SAPS, ourselves as correctional services and metro police to her house,” Thobakgale elaborates.

He says the consequences for members found guilty of supplying contraband are even worse than for inmates.

“What we normally do, we take them through disciplinary processes, we have statistics, and what pains me is that all of them end up being dismissed from the service. Now you have someone who was looking after a family, getting dismissed. That contributes to the high level of unemployment. But as I indicated we report it to SAPS and obviously the criminal justice system takes its course”

Thobakgale has urged the new recruits to think of their future and not get involved in illegal activities. He says they are part of more than a thousand new recruits that have just finished college. There will be advertisements for another intake of about three thousand at the end of January. Thobakgale says currently in total there are about 28 000 members who have to look after nearly 152 000 inmates and 70 000 parolees.