The directive comes after three convicts claimed that some officers mistreat them, contrary to the institution’s guidelines.
The three convicts, whose identities have been withheld, told Minister of Justice Given Lubinda, Mr Kampyongo and National Guidance and Religious Affairs minister Godfridah Sumaili during their visit to the correctional facility recently that they are ill-treated.
The convicts revealed their ordeal after Mr Lubinda asked the more than 500 male inmates to feel free and come out in the open if they are being beaten.
Mr Lubinda said corporal punishment is no longer allowed in Zambia, adding that those in incarceration were not there for punishment but reformation.
Mr Kampyongo warned that any officers who will be found to have beaten or used force against the convicts will be disciplined.
Mr Kampyongo said inmates are Zambian citizens just like any other and they deserve fair treatment.
Meanwhile, some inmates have pleaded with Government to come up with measures where someone who is released from the correctional facility can get financial help so that they can start a new life.
Report Calls Zambia’s Prisons ‘Death Traps’
Did you these inmates have empathy for the people they wronged. Lopoleni ifipondo
APRIL 27, 2010
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JOHANNESBURG — For punishment, inmates in Zambia’s prisons are commonly stripped naked and held in solitary confinement in small, windowless cells, sometimes for days on end, in ankle-to-calf-high water contaminated with their own excrement, according to a report released Tuesday by Human Rights Watch and two African human rights groups.
Prisoners routinely live in overcrowded cells where there is no room to lie down at night, leaving them to sleep in shifts, pressed against one another..
So you want them to be free, raping, robbing and killing people? They made their beds and they will lie in it!
“The source revealed that some senior officers who happen to be on influence of alcohol visit the prison and mete out pain at the inmates and the matter has been brought to the Zambia Correctional Service Director General Percy Chato but nothing has been done about it.”
“The abusers subject the prisoners to harsh conditions and call them wild animals who only deserve to be in hell fire, which is contrary to the principle of the Zambia Correctional Service. In some instances some prisoners are severely beaten by fellow in mates and this happens in full view of officers while sodomy is the order of the day.”
It is wrong to beat prisoners it is wrong to be negligent toward the state of prisoners whereby a prisoner is then beaten by other prisoners. Both are serious offences and even the officer be they a corrections officer in the case of convicts or police officers in the case of detainees, if the responsible office is found to be negligent he or she should be charged and convicted. We need to see cases where correction and police officers are sentenced for abusing prisoners and being negligent. Prisoners are human beings! Further to that improved condition are needed- the state is generating funds from prisons through the agric projects why can’t those funds be injected back into improving conditions of the prisons? Ba Kampyongo please do something God is watching and will judge those…
Ctn…Ba Kampyongo please do something God is watching and will judge those letting his children suffer !
I hope (HH) was among those who are being beaten regularly by correctional officers. He needs to grow up. If being caned like a child is what will make him grow then so be it.
Good idea !
I hope they didnt give there real names or else they are in trouble…its a real shame there is no longer any independent media to turn to.
Not to worry Kampyongo you will be joining these people soon!!
Point of correction.
they can be overcrowded but they are not tortured. they don’t sleep in waterlogged small rooms. If this was the case the UPND could have cried foul long time ago. Ask HH and he will tell you that it is survivable. Don’t just write, go and visit then you can write.
(HH) will come out stronger in all of this. The Under 5 will be well behaved from now on.
I am glad HH raised his hand three times (quickly changed his t-shirt, and changed his voice pitch) to complain about the brutal treatment he is receiving inside.
And I truly hope that PF have not paid a kaponya K500 to service HH on a daily basis. Hell will break loose if HH comes out with “amangobe”. In fact, we demand that he is tested for HIV upon being released. PF can not be trusted at all, our eyes are glued on them.