The Thabo Bester scandal has confirmed once and for all that the doors in some South African prisons are coin operated. But if we can’t rely on jails to mete out the punishment our scumbags deserve, there are at least some other incarceration options we could start exploring.
What we need, essentially, are places that keep people trapped for long periods; places which, once you enter, you don’t leave.
The most obvious solution is the express queue at Woolworths. Any branch of home affairs would also work nicely, with the worst offenders being forced to apply for an ID document while “the system is down”.
For some, however, simply counting down the clock on offenders’ lives doesn’t feel like adequate retribution. Physical torture is no longer a part of modern justice, but that doesn’t mean we can’t introduce sentences that include particularly vicious psychological torment.
We are reminded so publicly and graphically that prison is an optional and temporary inconvenience if you have the means and determination to get out.
For example, convicted criminals could be forced to run a business in Cyril Ramaphosa’s economy, employing people educated by Ramaphosa’s ministers of basic education and higher learning, reliant on Ramaphosa’s minister of transport, using electricity provided by Ramaphosa’s minister of electricity. If that’s not bad enough, they could be forced to run it next to the home of a cabinet minister, in the glare of lights that stay on 24/7 just because they can, listening to happy giggles and clinking whisky glasses.
I don’t know if it would contravene human rights agreements like the Geneva Convention, but they could also be forced to listen to every speech Jacob Zuma and Ramaphosa have ever made in which they outline how they’re fixing the economy, education, electricity generation and crime.
And for the absolute worst offenders, there’s a punishment considerably worse than death: being made a junior member of the NEC, which requires them to spend up to eight hours a day with their heads lodged firmly in the lower intestine of the Top Six.
I’m joking, of course. Nobody can run a business in this economy, even as a punishment. The Woolies express queue isn’t forever, just six or seven hours, depending on how many questions the shopper at the till has about why the price on the product is four cents higher than the advertised price.
I’m also joking because in a case like this, nervous laughter is an appropriate response. We all know the ANC can’t keep us safe, but at these moments, when we are reminded so publicly and graphically that prison is an optional and temporary inconvenience if you have the means and determination to get out, the ANC’s almost total abdication as a government feels not just infuriating and depressing but also terribly, terribly dangerous.
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