Prisoners of poverty: unaffordable bail keeps thousands behind bars

From left to right: Ben de Vos (Gun Free SA) and former remand detainees Rabia Welcome, Ravona Solomon and Neo Smouse. They spoke at the World Safety Conference on Friday. Photo: Liezl Human

• An estimated 3,300 people are stuck in South African prisons because they cannot afford bail of R1,000 or less. They have not been convicted of a crime.
• They are exposed to prison conditions for weeks or months.
• The Bail Fund, supported by philanthropic funding, has launched a pilot project to pay small bail amounts for low-risk detainees.

Ravona Solomon was arrested and charged with possession of drugs. She was granted bail of R1,000 but could not afford it. The magistrate reduced it to R800 but still it was not within her means. She spent three months in Pollsmoor Prison until the Bail Fund paid her bail. The charges against her were eventually withdrawn.

“You must be strong to survive in there,” Solomon told a panel discussion at the World Safety Conference 2026 in Cape Town on Friday. She said it was a violent environment. Women did not have access to sanitary pads and had to share the little soap there was.

The donor-funded South African Bail Fund, launched in May this year, estimates that 3,300 people are stuck in prisons because they cannot afford their bail of R1,000 or less. They are exposed to degrading conditions, including violence, overcrowded cells, bad-quality food and a lack of toiletries and sanitation. It costs the state about R463 per person per day to keep them in prison.

In May and June, the Bail Fund’s pilot project paid the bail for 154 people charged with “petty offences” and granted bail ranging from R300 to R1,000. They were being held at prisons including Goodwood Correctional Centre, Pollsmoor Women’s Section, Pollsmoor Remand Detention Facility, and Pollsmoor Medium A.

A third of the people assisted had been charged with possession of drugs.

Jody-Lee Fredericks, SA Bail Fund director, said at Friday’s panel discussion that in one case, a remand detainee was in prison for 11 months awaiting trial.

“People are being penalised for being poor,” she said.

Neo Smouse, who lives in Langa, was charged with drug possession and granted R1,000 bail.

“I told the court I couldn’t afford that amount of bail. Still they didn’t reduce it,” he said.

He spent two weeks in Pollsmoor.

“When I got to prison, as a first-time experience … it’s not clean. There is no respect among inmates,” he said.

He said there was a lot of gang-related violence in prison. “Some people are forced to ‘take the number’, so they are not abused,” he said.

He described the food as unhealthy and said there was too little toilet paper to share among prisoners.

Another former remand detainee, Rabia Welcome, said when people got sick, they were often told the medical staff were fully booked.

“None of them would’ve been exposed to this if they were able to afford bail,” Fredericks said during the panel discussion.

Ben de Vos of Gun Free SA said people who spend even a short amount of time in prison can be “recruited” into gangsterism.

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