Durban - The discovery of more than 200 SIM cards and almost 70 phones during a raid on Westville Prison has sharpened the Department of Correctional Services’ determination to stamp out the illicit use of cellphones in cells, with plans for signal jamming under consideration.
During the raid on Friday, authorities also unearthed 62 phone chargers and evidence that one inmate was running a taxi business from inside the prison.
The head of Correctional Services in KwaZulu-Natal, Nombuso Mkhize, said signal jamming was already operational at the Umzinto Correctional Facility. The national department was looking at a wider roll-out. Mkhize said not even warders were allowed cellphones inside prisons.
Of the SIM cards recovered, 128 were taken off one offender. Some of the chargers recovered in the cells were still plugged into illegally connected power points siphoning electricity from the ceiling light fixtures.
The raid, by more than 120 officers of the correctional services Emergency Support Team from around the province, took even the warders by surprise.
Four wings in the B, and C blocks were targeted in the joint operation with the SAPS and - for the first time - with nurses, to verify that what was claimed to be medication by offenders, really was.
“We need to get to the root of the smuggling. We cannot allow offenders to take over our facilities,” Mkhize said.
The raid also yielded 933 “slopes” (single portion packets) and seven money bags of dagga, as well as 34 Mandrax tablets, of which 32 were found in one bag.
The most unexpected find was almost 50 litres of home brewed beer. Some of the brew was in an open bucket brewing under a bunk bed in a cell shared by more than 60 men.
Mkhize said this suggested that there was a lot of unauthorised activity happening at Westville and security measures needed to be intensified.
The offenders, among whose belongings the Mandrax and SIM cards were discovered, were immediately moved to the Kokstad Prison.
“They will remain there while the investigations are taking place. We need to see if they are still able to bring in these unauthorised items at another facility, in which case we will know the problem is not at Westville,” Mkhize said.
She said the investigations would also involve a “careful look at our warders. Offenders do not go in and out of this facility to bring this stuff in, our warders are the ones who leave and come back, so we need to take a closer look at them,” Mkhize said.
Those guilty of transgressions would face disciplinary action, dismissal or criminal prosecution, she said.
Police union Popcru’s Kwa-Zulu-Natal secretary, Kwenza Nxele, on Sunday said management had not informed it of a decision to implement signal jamming devices at the prison. He said Popcru’s view on the jamming device would be informed by its members once it had been presented to them.
“We need to discuss the matter first,” he said.
“But the phone issue, it is not allowed, the law is very clear on that. How the phones enter prison is subject to different views, but it is not correct to say it is the workers who are to blame,” she said.
DA spokesman on Correctional Services James Selfe said jamming the signal would be easy and cost effective.
“If they can do it in Parliament, they can do it at Pollsmoor,” he said.
“We have debated this matter at great length and it took centre stage recently because of George ‘Geweld’ Thomas (leader of the 28s gang). He was convicted of seven murders and ordered two of them while in prison, it’s an untenable situation when someone can make 33 000 calls from inside,” he said.
Selfe said he felt warders did not need to use their cellphones during work hours and said signal jamming “can and must be done”.
Daily News