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[File Image]: An inmate behind bars.
The South African Prisoners Organization for Human Rights (SAPOHR) has criticised a proposal by Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis for cellphone signal-blocking technology 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.
A recent case involved a road project in Bishop Lavis, which was abandoned after a contractor received extortion threats from an inmate linked to the criminal underworld.
However, SAPOHR activist Golden Miles says prisoners have a right to be in contact with their loved ones.
“The Department of Correctional Services should have come up with a solution a long time ago. Get the communication of friends and relatives beefed up by calling any other service provider to come and install these cell phones and it is monitored, 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 cell phone, you must know that technology doesn’t lie. You will rot in prison.”
