Zimbabwe prisons remain overpopulated

Zimbabwe's prison population is too high and authorities are struggling to fulfil their mandate of rehabilitating inmates, an official said on Tuesday.

Appearing before a joint sitting of parliament's human rights committee and the justice, legal and parliamentary affairs committee, prisons commissioner general Social Ndanga said the current prison population was 22,174 and it sometimes rises up to 24,000.

"Of that figure, 21,401 are males and 772 are females," he said. "What is very critical for us now is to equip these prisoners, these inmates, so that when they go out of prison, they become law-abiding citizens, and they don't go back to prison."

In April this year, over 4,000 inmates were released under a presidential amnesty, one of the methods to decongest the prisons. That mass prisoner release followed a previous one in May 2023 when Mnangagwa issued a clemency order leading to the release of 4,270 prisoners.

Despite those interventions, Ndanga says the country's 46 prisons remain full.

There are 17 prisons, including Connemara Open Prison, that are only meant for male inmates and 26 prisons accommodate both male and female prisoners while three prisons are exclusively female.

Ndanga said authority has been granted for the construction of two modern prisons in Gwanda and at Hurungwe prison farm.

"Topographical surveys have been completed and master plan designs are in progress but budgetary constraints will obviously delay completion of the same. And also there are temporary prisons that are going to be constructed throughout the country," he told MPs.