Prisons grapples with balancing rights, rehabilitation
Chakalisa Dube | Monday March 4, 2024 06:00
Critics argue that denying prisoners some basic rights perpetuates cycles of violence, habitual relapse into crime and impacts negatively on their overall rehabilitation. They advocate for a more progressive approach that prioritises robust rehabilitation programs and the seamless reintegration of inmates into society.
However, the Botswana Prison Service (BPS) outgoing Commissioner Dinah Marathe has reiterated that it is impossible for Botswana to allow prisoners to retain some of their basic rights. Marathe emphasises the necessity of denying certain privileges to maintain accountability and proper policing in prisons.
She was addressing the media in Francistown recently. Some nations guarantee that individuals who are incarcerated retain most of their basic rights and have even gone to an extent of allowing, conjugal visits and use of cellular phones.
Marathe said that Botswana prisons do not have the capacity to ensure that prisoners are able to exercise some of the basic rights or freedoms.
“We often benchmark in prisons around the world. Some developed nations now allow the use of cellphones in their facilities (prisons). They have allowed smoking and other privileges to prisoners. We have not advanced to that level,” Marathe said.
She explained that despite calls for a more progressive approach, limitations in infrastructure and resources such as technology and manpower hinder the BPS from adopting practices seen in other countries.
Marathe added that most prisons or correctional centres in Africa also deny prisoners some civil liberties that are offered in established economies. She said that the decision to deny the prisoners some privileges is mostly rooted in the realities of their respective systems.
“We are different in Africa. The way prisoners behave abroad is different from our people. We have to take what can work for us and leave the rest to other people who have the capacity,” said Marathe, who reiterated that despite challenges the BPS is committed in its quest for a fair and humane prison system.
Various stakeholders and rights bodies have in recent years been calling the BPS to explore innovative initiatives aimed at upholding key rights and dignity of prisoners.
The BPS has in recent years also often come under the spotlight for denying prisoners some of their civil liberties. In 2019, Botswana Network on Ethics, Law and HIV/AIDS (BONELA) pleaded with the BPS to allow the distribution of condoms in jails, following a landmark ruling on gay sex.
BONELA said that for decades the government has refused to provide condoms to prisoners on the basis that their mode of sexual encounter is criminalised, but because the court has made a pronouncement that gay sex is legal, it was logical to provide condoms for prisoners.
BONELA argued that the court judgement meant that prison inmates can engage in consensual same sex relations. To this day prisoners are not offered condoms. The BPS has previously said that it is assessing the suitability of availing condoms in local prisons.
A few years ago, the court also ordered that foreign prisoners be provided with free HIV testing, assessment, and ARV treatment. That was after the government had shrugged off pressure to do so from rights groups, a move that was widely seen as a gross transgression against the rights of foreign prisoners.