SAPOHR rejects plan to block cellphone signals at Pollsmoor Prison

The South African Prisoners Organisation for Human Rights (SAPOHR) has criticised a proposal by Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis for cellphone signal-blocking technology to be used at Pollsmoor Prison.

 In a formal letter to Correctional Services Minister Pieter Groenewald, the mayor says inmates are using mobile phones to orchestrate crime from behind bars.

One recent case involved a roads project in Bishop Lavis, which was abandoned after a contractor received extortion threats from an inmate linked to the criminal underworld.

SAPOHR’s Golden Miles Bhudu says, “The Department of Correctional Services should have come up with a solution a long time ago. Firstly, get the communication of friends and relatives beefed up by calling any other service provider to come and install these cellphones. And it is monitored and evaluated and supervised to an extent that there’s a line that has been drawn. When you go and want to commit a crime using this cellphone, you must know that technology doesn’t lie. You will rot in prison.”