Presumed guilty! Years in prison awaiting trial
Goodwood prison massively overcrowded, judge’s report finds
The Goodwood Correctional Centre in Cape Town is operating at more than 150% capacity. This was revealed in a report by Judge Stuart Wilson of the Johannesburg High Court who inspected the facility on 3 April 2025. Archive photo: Tariro Washinyira
- Goodwood Prison is operating at over 150% capacity, largely due to remand detainees who cannot afford bail.
- A judicial report released on Monday has found that many detainees have spent years in pre-trial detention with little or no judicial review.
- Judge Stuart Wilson who visited the prison last month, has criticised the fiscal austerity and a lack of judicial cooperation as key factors driving overcrowding and deteriorating conditions.
The Goodwood Correctional Centre in Cape Town is operating at more than 150% capacity. This is largely due to the number of remand detainees at the facility who simply cannot afford bail, a judicial report has found. Many of these inmates have spent years in pre-trial detention with little or no judicial review.
Remand detainees are people awaiting trial or sentencing who have not been convicted of a crime. Judge Stuart Wilson of the Johannesburg High Court inspected the facility on 3 April 2025. The prison is overwhelmed by austerity, staff shortages, and inadequate judicial cooperation, Wilson found.
The Goodwood Prison is geared to house sentenced prisoners but about a decade ago, remand detainees also began to be held there. “The effect of that decision has been to generate overcrowding at Goodwood, and to disrupt what was, by all accounts, a successful post-sentence correctional regime,” Wilson wrote in his report released on Monday.
The prison at the time of Wilson’s visit had 1,793 prisoners awaiting trial and 725 sentenced prisoners, despite the facility only being approved to hold 1,651 prisoners.
Of the 1,793 remand detainees, 798 were in prison simply because they cannot afford to pay bail. The prison referred 262 of these cases for a bail reduction, but this only led to the release of 31 prisoners.
Mbekezeli Benjamin, a researcher at Judges Matter, told GroundUp that it’s “worrying” that so many people remain in remand detention simply for being poor. “This means the courts have already found it in the interests of justice for them to be released, but they remain in detention, most likely due to poverty.”
He said there needs to be more ways for the court to ensure that an accused comes to court other than them paying a bail amount. “Magistrates may need to be more flexible in appropriate circumstances, and waive payment of bail in lieu of additional conditions, such as an accused reporting to a police station more regularly,” Benjamin said.
Benjamin added that although efforts are underway to improve efficiency in the criminal justice system, it was “clearly not enough”.
He said accountability must begin with the Department of Correctional Services, the National Prosecuting Authority, and the judiciary.
“[It] is a huge risk to the public that people are going into pretrial detention as petty offenders but graduate as hardened criminals simply because they are kept in pre-trial detention, where they receive no rehabilitation programmes,” Benjamin said.
Despite the systemic challenges, Wilson praised Goodwood Prison’s staff. “I was, in fact, impressed by the level of commitment and enthusiasm shown by the centre’s senior staff … These are people who want to get it right, but who are often prevented from doing so by factors beyond their control.”
Poor security and staffing
The judge found that staffing at the facility is stretched, with a ratio of about one officer for every 30 to 40 inmates. Staff also have limited overtime pay which means inmates are often confined for long hours with little access to recreational activities.
Security on the prison grounds is compromised because there’s no perimeter fence, despite the prison housing inmates linked to dangerous and violent crimes. “Contraband, including dangerous weapons and drugs, can simply be thrown over the wall into the prisoners’ yards,” Wilson wrote. Multiple requests by the prison for a fence have been denied over the years due to budget constraints.
In the first three months of this year alone, 49 assault cases were reported, including the death of an inmate at the hands of four suspended officers. Wilson noted that inadequate security increases the likelihood of violence, both among inmates, and between staff and prisoners.
Although the facility appeared clean, the infrastructure is deteriorating. Inmates in one cell were found sleeping under a leaking, mouldy ceiling. Wilson attributed the maintenance backlog to budget cuts as well as the termination of a maintenance contract between the Departments of Public Works and Correctional Services.
“The quality of food available at Goodwood is becoming poorer,” the report found. Broken kitchen equipment, reduced meat portions, and meals being combined over weekends, potentially violates the Correctional Services Act’s requirement of three daily meals.
Goodwood’s medical unit is well-staffed and stocked, but operates from unsuitable buildings. Meanwhile, the prison’s only doctor works on a year-to-year contract.
To reduce overcrowding in its awaiting-trial section, Goodwood Prison refers prisoners who have been awaiting trial for two or more years back to court to reconsider whether they should be in pretrial detention at all. “This is done under section 49G (1) of the Correctional Services Act, which provides that ‘[t]he period of incarceration of a remand detainee must not exceed two years from the initial date of admission into the remand detention facility, without such matter having been brought to the attention of the court concerned’,” the report said. But Wilson said the justice system’s response to the prison’s initiative has been “underwhelming”.
Of the 78 remand detainees held for more than two years and referred back to court, 27 were denied release. The remaining 51 of them are yet to receive consideration.
One inmate has been awaiting trial for over ten years. “The constitutionally-entrenched presumption of innocence rings hollow – guilty or not, the inmate concerned has already likely been punished to the extent the law normally allows,” Wilson wrote. Eighteen others have been in remand for between five and seven years, including some facing charges such as fraud.
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