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Cape Town - A Pollsmoor inmate's fiancée has lashed out at Correctional Services after a fallout from the prison Facebook page.
Officials held prisoner Sulayman Levendahl responsible for the page, which garnered over 2 600 likes before it was removed from the social media platform.
"Mr Visagie is the head of Pollsmoor Med-B. He called Sulayman and the other two inmates in - not for questioning but to inform them that he was changing them from Medium (A-group) to Maximum (C-group). When they questioned him and officials about this drastic decision, they were told that they opened a Facebook page and posted their photos," Grace Macombie, Levendahl's fiancée, told Fin24.
Despite numerous efforts, Pollsmoor prison and Willem Visagie were unavailable to comment on this specific case.
Macombie said that Sulayman and two others expressed shock when shown pictures posted to Facebook.
"Mr Visagie didn't give them a chance to prove their innocence and they weren't even allowed to ask questions - nothing. A few days after that they were informed that they were being transferred to a maximum prison, they didn't say where and when; they didn't even have the decency to inform their relatives," she added.
Social media access
Macombie questioned why officials focused on Sulayman.
"There were more than 40 [pictures] including my fiancé and the two inmates' photos of various inmates uploaded on that page. Why wasn't everyone whose photo was uploaded on that page (punished?) Why didn't they call all of them in? My fiancé and friends were told that they were busy investigating this matter, so how could you punish a person when an investigation is still in progress?"
The Facebook page as well as a Twitter account have demonstrated the difficulty authorities have in controlling prisoner access to social media.
"The issue is that you can't see when prisoners use drugs or weapons, but you can see when they’re using smart phones because they post things on social media when they’re not even allowed to have phones," specialist technology attorney Russel Luck told Fin24.
The so-called Waterkloof four were found to have mobile devices in jail. Christoff Becker's prison privileges were suspended following the revelations.
While it is unclear how the pictures were uploaded to Facebook, it is clear that the images were captured in the prison, which means that officials are accountable for how a phone entered the prison.
"Assistance with a cellphone is different to assistance with drugs or a weapon. It's a criminal offence (in the outside world) to assist people with the sale or use of drugs or use of a weapon, which is knowingly used to perpetrate crime," Luck explained.
He said that wardens found to be assisting prisoners would be regarded as guilty of ethical misconduct, rather than a criminal offence. However, a few of these cases are brought to court.
"In practice, there is very little case law on this because police or wardens very rarely go through official criminal prosecutions. It's handled behind the scenes with 'improper conduct' suspensions or voluntary resignations. Because there are few trials, there is hardly any case law on these issues," said Luck.
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