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The “Massive Mandela Masterpiece” (MMM) project, aimed at creating the largest portrait blanket in the world, was launched at Zonderwater Correctional Centre near Cullinan last week. Participating inmates at eighty prisons around SA will help knit a 4,500 square meter blanket resulting from a unique partnership between ‘67 Blankets for Nelson Mandela Day’, the Nelson Mandela Foundation and the Department of Correctional Services (DCS). With every black or grey blanket representing just one pixel, the ambitious project driven by 67 Blankets founder Carolyn Steyn will ensure Madiba’s face is visible from outer space. 

Law Focus, a show on the Wits University radio station, VowFM, together with the Wits Justice Project produced a radio show on the ongoing parole protests happening in South African prisons. 

For various reasons, the release of a prisoner is a contentious issue in any society. This week Law Focus brings the spotlight onto parole law. Parole is the conditional release of prisoners before they complete their sentence. Paroled prisoners are supervised by a public official, usually called a parole officer. If paroled prisoners violate the conditions of their release, they may be returned to prison. Prisoners serving life and long term sentences at Pretoria’s Kgosi Mampuru II prison went to protest early this month with the outcry that their parole is mishandled.

To shed light on these matters, this week’s show opens with Spokesperson for the Department of Correctional Services Singabakho Nxumalo. We are also joined by Frank Mbedzi who is the Chairperson of the South African Prisoners Organisation for Human Rights, and later on behalf of Lawyers for Human Rights’ Clare Ballard who heads the penal reform programme.

Listen to it here

South Africa’s most famous ex-prisoner wrote in his autobiography that “no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails”. In this factsheet, we provide data to show what’s going on inside South African prisons.

It is important that we remember the sacrifices older generations have made for South Africa, but in order to truly heal we need to recognise and acknowledge the pain we all feel and the burden we carry from our past. 

The Wits Justice Project seeks to appoint a Journalism Intern, based in Johannesburg.

Sonke Gender Justice have sent an answering affidavit to the Government's response to the Western Cape High Court on their Pollsmoor court order, saying that more needs to be done with regard to the inhumane conditions that exist which can't be addressed by simply reducing overcrowding. 

The three men accused of the Rhodes Park attacks in Johannesburg have been sentenced, but has the large media attention surrounding the case put pressure on the judge to perform?

First time offender sent to prison for three days for stealing a packet of bubble-gum worth R68 at a garage

A first-timer's perspective on the magistrates court in Johannesburg, and understanding how magistrates put pressure on remand detention facilities  

An annual report by the Access to Information Network (ATI Network) revealed that nearly half (46%) of access to information requests submitted by ATI Network members were either actively denied or denied as a result of requests being ignored. The ATI Network is comprised of civil society organisations, including: Right2Know, amaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism and the Wits Justice Project.