The Sunday Mail
The Sunday Mail Reporter Harmony Agere last week caught up with Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services Commissioner-General, Major-General (Retired) Paradzayi Willings Zimondi, who shared his views on the situation in the country’s holding facilities. This is what the ZPCS boss had to say.
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Rtd Maj-Gen Paradzayi Zimondi
The Zimbabwe Prison and Correctional Services has at least one prison in every province of the country. In total, they are 43 prisons in Zimbabwe with a holding capacity of about 17 000 inmates. But with a bit of revamping in the past few years, the capacity has slightly increased to just above 8 000.
So, unlike what some people have been saying, there is no overcrowding in our prisons. It is only the Remand Prison which has a problem of overcrowding because there is a lot of transit with people coming in and waiting to go for trial, which sometimes take time to conclude due to court proceedings that are beyond our control.
Concerns have also been raised on the quality of food offered to inmates in our holding facilities. Let me say we do not have a problem, we are managing to provide inmates with the staple meals. In the past we have had shortages of cooking oil and sugar, but that does not mean there will be no food.
Confidently I can say there is neither starvation nor malnourishment in our prisons. Clothes wear out here and there but we always make sure that no one moves around unclothed or sleeps without blankets. We should all understand that prisons bring people of various backgrounds and from various communities.
The system creates a community and we should understand that what goes on outside the prison walls is also the same with inside the prison because our facilities take people coming from society. So the same diseases you find outside are the same you find inside the prisons and the way they spread is the same way they spread in jail.
Similarly, the same health policies that guide the whole country also guide the prisons as well. We have medical doctors and nurses who are always on the lookout for any threats. Diseases are indeed there in the prisons as they are also outside the prisons. But we have experts to deal with these challenges and it is not something to be worried about.
The prisons that were built by the colonial government were poorly ventilated and without adequate washrooms so this aids the spreading of diseases. One of the major problems we have is that most of our big prisons, like Harare Central and Masvingo, were built a very long time ago.
They were built without proper ventilation and do not have adequate washrooms, but these issues are being looked at to see how well we can address them.
Although after 1980, Government built modern prisons like Kadoma, Mutimurefu, Mutare and Khami in Bulawayo much of our prisons were built to punish. And it is almost impossible to renovate them because that will mean demolishing them entirely and building new ones, which would be very costly to Government at this moment in time.
The way forward now is to build prisons which are ideal and which conform to the prescribed United Nations standards. These are the things which are always on our minds, to say our prisoners should be in conditions that conform to international standards. But on that note people should understand that conditions at home and conditions in prison are not the same.
Up until last year we had four administrative regions for the whole country. These were Mashonaland region, which covered all Mashonaland provinces; then Manicaland region covering Manicaland province and parts of Mashonaland West; the Masvingo-Midlands region; and then Matabeleland.
This meant our officers and administration were stretched. For example an officer in Harare could drive to as far as Kariba as part of their duty.
However, each and every one of our 10 provinces now has its own command. This helps us to administer our prisons efficiently because most of the things are being done at provincial level and the areas to be covered have also become relatively smaller and manageable.
In the past when one was convicted they were condemned to incarceration and hard labour. Our facilities were set up to punish; there was little room to correct the offender so that when they were released they were people who could fit well in society. By this I mean imparting skills to people so that when they go out they are people who can make a living for themselves as tailors, welders, builders, carpenters and farmers.
We have officers who are skilled to train inmates in all these fields.
This is done to make sure that when one leaves prison they do not engage in criminal activities to survive. We also have an open prison system, the only such prison in Zimbabwe so far is Connemara Prison in Kwekwe. However it serves man only at the moment and the goal is to have an open prison for women too.
Open prison is for people who would have been recommended to go there based on their conduct when they are in other prisons. Those with serious offences such as rape, murder and robbery do not qualify. Those recommended to go there are people left with only two years for them to be released. There they are groomed and given a chance to sharpen the skills they had been taught.
Connemara is just adjacent to Kaguvi Vocational Training Centre which makes it easier for inmates to enrol in programmes there. At the open prison there are no officers who follow everyone around holding a gun. The officer and the inmate are two people who should be cordial in their relations.
The officer is a guiding mentor to the inmate. It is what we call rehabilitation, preparing one for their eventual release so that when he goes back home he will adapt well in the community.
The inmates at the open prison are even given time to go to their homes on holidays like Christmas and spend time with their families. Before we release them we tell the police and village leaders in their respective areas so that their movements and behavior can be monitored. Since we opened this facility we have seen that our rehabilitation efforts are really helping. We are doing this because we are one people, you cannot condemn a person just because they have been in jail.
We have social workers, psychologists, pastors and other personnel required to run a rehabilitation institution. Now we will be moving to build the same kind of prison for women in Marondera. We want it to be a standard prison because women are people who require special sundries. Also, at the moment we do not have a proper prison for women; we have a female facility at Chikurubi, but you notice it has a more bias towards male inmates.
Eventually the aim is for each and every province to have its own open prison. We do a lot of community service. It may seem to outsiders like we are always seeking help from society but we are also providing help to others. For example, we recently provided skilled personnel to help in the building of a church and a clinic in Chidodo village in Uzumba.
We offer this kind of help to those who need it throughout the country. We are only a request away to provide our skills.
