SAfrica must tackle prison overcrowding - judge

JOHANNESBURG, Mar 30 (Reuters) South Africa must tackle overcrowding in prisons, which is hampering rehabilitation of criminals and fuelling the country's crime record, a leading judge today said.

Judge Hannes Fagan, who heads the country's prisons watchdog, said a drive launched last year to release low-risk inmates had helped but was not a long-term solution.

Analysts say some of South Africa's jails hold three times more prisoners than they were built for -- creating fertile ground for violence and rape, which are believed to be common.

''In world terms, we're bad. We have one of the biggest prison populations in the world,'' Fagan told today Reuters, a day after releasing the Judicial Inspectorate of Prisons report.

''In the last year things have improved ... the prison release programme was wonderful.'' Overall, South Africa's prison population stands at 157,000 although its 240 prisons are only meant to hold 114,000.

NO NEED FOR MORE PRISONS South African police say crime is levelling off after surging following the end of apartheid in 1994 but the figures are still staggering. Close to 18,800 murders and over 55,000 rape cases were reported in the year to March 2005.

Nevertheless, Fagan called for minimum sentences for offences like murder and rape to be scrapped and said efforts should instead focus on preventing crime through pumping more money into social programmes like education.

He said it was clear that crime was a result of high levels of poverty and unemployment, given that 13,000 South Africans are behind bars merely because they could not afford bail in some cases as little as 50 rand (7.92 dollars).

''We've got to create jobs and sport and recreation and more schooling,'' he said.

''A lot of the money should go there -- we spend 29 million rand a day on prisons. We don't need more prisons.'' REUTERS SB RAI2102