Seminar: Vold i Sydafrikas fængsler

TIME: Thursday, 22 November, 14.30 ‐ 16.00

VENUE: Borgergade 13, Copenhagen K

TIME: Thursday, 22 November, 14.30 ‐ 16.00

VENUE: Borgergade 13, Copenhagen K

Violence in South African prisons ‐ like many others ‐ is a pervasive problem that brutalises many in and moving through the system. The violence is not only affecting those directly involved, but also witnesses and those who hear of it. Thus causing trauma, ill‐health and further violence both in prison and beyond.  

Historically, the South African Department of Correctional Services (DCS) has tended to address prison safety through the lens of preventing escapes, which has resulted in ‘hard’ security measures (such as erecting perimeter fencing and security gates).

However, DCS has not adequately addressed prison violence from a managerial and sociological perspective.

So while individual prisons may have developed short‐term approaches, these are not sufficiently documented, nor do they appear to feed into the development of a strategy to reduce violence throughout DCS facilities. Moreover, very little is known about what South African warders actually do.  

Sasha will be talking about a recently completed South African study that sought to address this situation by gaining insight into local level prison warders’ relationships to violence in the facilities where they work.

Specifically it aimed to better understand the spaces between policies (how things are supposed to be done) and warders’ daily experiences so as to get closer to how things are actually done, as well as to get a deeper look at factors facilitating violence in prison.  

She will share with you the innovative methodology used in attempt to gather this data, and some of the key findings of the study.

Sasha Gear is Program Director for Just Detention International (JDI), a health and human rights organisation that seeks to end sexual violence in all forms of detention.

Prior to joining JDI, she was at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR) where she spent 10 years working on the subject of sexual violence in South African prisons.

Furthermore she has published on the ways in which violence plays out in the world of prisons and on the gendered dimensions of sexual violence against men. She is based in Johannesburg, South Africa.

NOTE: Participation is free, and registration is not necessary.