Criminal justice
Fear, violence and sexual violence in a Gauteng juvenile correctional centre for males
Young men's reports of fear and violence in a South African prison
Authors:
S. Gear
Publisher:
Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, South Africa, 2007
Violence, described as endemic to South African Correctional Centres is generally under-reported and a severe hindrance to the Department of Correctional Services’ current and ambitious vision to reduce re-offending through rehabilitating offenders. This brief outlines the young men’s reports of fear and violence including sexual violence in the Boksburg Youth Correctional Centre (BYC). The authors investigate offender’s experiences related to violence, sex and sexual violence in prison.
The authors details staff provision of protectative information, perceptions of fear and safety and gang members and assault. The brief goes on to examine understandings of the official status of sex and rape in prison and perceptions of staff behaviour in relation to assault.
The brief contains detailed results from the survey, which include:
- sixty-three percent of the 156 respondents who had spent time in another institution for sentenced offenders regarded BYC as less safe than other facilities they’d experienced and 25% regarded it as safer
- fifty-eight percent of most recent assaults were not reported to anyone by the respondent victim
- one in six (16%) respondents who reported having been assaulted were currently sharing a cell with someone who had assaulted them during the last 6 months
- almost 1 in 3 (31%) young men said that they had had sex with someone (in or outside of prison) despite knowing that this person did not want to have sex with them.
