One of three comprehensive investigations into serious 2025 Western Cape correctional centre incidents revealed an inmate’s erroneous release from Pollsmoor Remand Detention Facility, an escape facilitated by impersonation and operational failures, not an administrative error.
Department of Correctional Services National Commissioner Makgothi Thobakgale revealed the findings during a media briefing on Monday.
Reacting, Professor Nirmala Gopal, a criminologist at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, said:
- The first investigation reveals preventable failures. “Known behavioural risks were not adequately managed, and earlier intervention could have averted the tragedy. This points to systemic weaknesses rather than isolated misconduct.”
- Similarly, the second investigation “correctly establishes that this was not an administrative error, but a deliberate escape facilitated by impersonation and compounded by failures in supervision, access control, management oversight, and biometric systems”.
- The third investigation highlights how quickly order collapses when discipline is compromised. “The unauthorised departure of officials from their posts represents a serious breach of correctional security.”
“The recommended disciplinary interventions are, therefore, appropriate. Accountability of both staff and systems is essential if correctional facilities are to function as controlled and secure environments. Without it, violence and instability become inevitable,” Gopal said.
Thobakgale said recommendations and stabilisation measures underscore the continued need for sustained intervention.
Due to the recent incidents and instability in the Western Cape, Thobakgale recommended to Minister Dr Pieter Groenewald that criminal and disciplinary matters be handled independently and externally from the region. The high crime rate, gangsterism, and alleged organised criminal activity within Correctional centres necessitate these extraordinary measures.
“The department will institute disciplinary proceedings against implicated senior managers and officials, address systemic weaknesses, and ensure that correctional centres are managed lawfully, ethically, and professionally,” Thobakgale said.
Gopal asserted that removing criminal and disciplinary processes from the Western Cape clearly admits to collapsed internal controls. Given the province’s extreme violence, entrenched gangsterism, and alleged criminal activity in correctional facilities, she believed extraordinary intervention was unavoidable.
“External oversight is not about optics. It is about restoring credibility, protecting staff and inmates, and preventing prisons from becoming command centres for organised crime. Holding senior management accountable and exposing these failures publicly is the bare minimum required to stabilise a system that has lost public trust,” explained Gopal.
Thobeka Ngema
iol.co.za