Experts: Pistorius’ cash, influence will determine his prison experience

When Oscar Pistorius was booked into Pretoria's Kgosi Mampuru II prison on Tuesday, a tiny change was made to the jail's Wikipedia page. C-Max, Kgosi Mampuru's maximum security unit, is worth just a few lines on the website — and there, under a short section titled "Notable inmates," the former Olympic and Paralympic hero's name had been inserted above those of three South African serial killers and an apartheid-era hit squad boss.

But 27-year-old Pistorius' life in the prison's hospital section won't be much like Moses Sithole's (38 victims, currently serving 2,410 years) or Annanias Mathe's (54 years for attempted murder, rape and theft). Pistorius, sentenced to five years after being found guilty of culpable homicide for killing his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, in 2013, has two of the most powerful commodities a South African prisoner can hope for, say experts: money and influence.

When Pistorius handed his watch to his uncle Arnold Pistorius and descended into the holding cells beneath the Pretoria High Court, he became one of about 160,000 people currently incarcerated in South Africa's prisons.

In recent years, his case and that of British businessman Shrien Dewani, which is being heard in the Cape Town High Court, have placed these prisons under a microscope.

Dewani, too, is accused of killing his partner. His new bride, Anni Dewani, was shot dead in an allegedly staged hijacking in 2010. During the extradition process, Dewani's British lawyers argued that their client would be "very vulnerable" to gang-related sexual violence in a South African prison. Pistorius' lawyer, Barry Roux, likewise argued in mitigation of sentence that the country's prisons couldn't handle the athlete's disability — Pistorius wears prosthetics after both his legs were amputated below the knees when he was a child — and that gangs may target him.

Although Kgosi Mampuru II is reported to be a hotbed of gang activity, experts say Pistorius' detention in a single-person cell, his money and a strong support structure — high-powered lawyers and a devoted family — are all likely to keep him safe.

Journalist Ruth Hopkins and the team at the Johannesburg-based Wits University Justice Project have worked since 2008 to tell prisoners' stories and expose the cracks in the system. In 2013 she exposed widespread torture and the forced use of anti-psychotic drugs on inmates and even guards in Bloemfontein's Mangaung Correctional Centre. Warder Themba Tom told Hopkins in an interview for South Africa's Mail and Guardian newspaper, "There was a soundproof room in the single-cells unit. We called it the dark room because [emergency security team] members would bring inmates there, strip them naked, pour water over them and electroshock them. We would try not to hear the crying and screaming. It was awful."

She said, however, that "Pistorius will be fine … Money is very useful in South African prisons." Some, like Mangaung, are ostensibly cash-free, but there are other things that can be bartered, like cigarettes. At some prisons, inmates are allowed to run accounts so they can purchase goods from small internal shops. With Pistorius' wealth and family support, he's unlikely to be left without items that he can trade with other prisoners or guards. Along with money, mobile phones are banned in cells — although, as Hopkins points out, "influential inmates Whatsapp, email and phone [the Wits Justice Project] even though it's not allowed."

Issues of race and class are unavoidable when discussing South Africa's justice system, from arrest to incarceration. Another thing that sets Pistorius apart from the average inmate is that he's white and upper class. As Hopkins put it, South Africa's system "doesn't work in your favor if you're a poor black man."

Forensic scientist David Klatzow told South Africa's City Press newspaper earlier this month that justice favors the rich in South Africa, saying, “Of course there is a better chance that you and I, the middle class or poor people, will end up going to jail. We simply cannot afford such sophisticated representation as, for example, Oscar Pistorius." He said entry-level defense advocates charge at least 5,000 South African rand (about $460) a day, while “half-decent” lawyers bill up to $4,500 a day.

Another newspaper, Beeld, reported that Pistorius' defense advocate was charging 35,000 rand ($3,200) a day. Add to that two other senior legal representatives and the costs incurred by employing forensic experts, and that's a hefty legal bill even for an internationally renowned athlete.

There are other areas of the system where class particularly comes to the fore.

Take Xolile Mngeni, 27, the man who pulled the trigger and killed Anni Dewani. In 2011, while awaiting trial for his role in the hit, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. After being sentenced to life in prison he applied for parole on medical grounds. His mother pleaded with the Department of Correctional Services, which manages South Africa's prisons, to let her care for her terminally ill son at home. But medical parole was denied, and Mngeni died earlier this month, just a few days after Shrien Dewani's trial started.

Shrien Dewani's ill health, on the other hand, is part of what has kept him out of a prison cell until now. He suffered a breakdown after his wife's death, and his lawyers struck a deal with the South African government that ensured he would be held in a psychiatric hospital, Cape Town's Valkenberg, throughout his trial.

“Medical parole also reveals a class distinction,” said Hopkins. Two of South Africa's most infamous medical parolees are Schabir Shaik, a former financial adviser to President Jacob Zuma, and Jackie Selebi, a former national police commissioner. Both were found guilty of corruption in separate cases, and each was sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment. Shaik was released on medical parole after spending less than two and a half years behind bars. He cited a heart condition, but after being released in 2009, he made a seemingly remarkable recovery and has been spotted out and about in his home city, Durban.

Selebi fought his conviction and sentencing and, after all his appeals failed, collapsed at his Johannesburg home. He spent only a few months behind bars before being released because, the Department of Correctional Services said, he was suffering from irreversible kidney failure, high blood pressure and diabetes.

Critics have always insisted that Selebi and Shaik's political clout and connections helped them secure medical parole. Neither man is white, but as Hopkins points out, they were able to leverage power and influence linked to their financial and political standing rather than their race.

What of the gangs Roux warned about in unsuccessfully trying to secure Pistorius' freedom? The numbers gangs — the 26s, 27s and 28s — are prolific in South African jails. South African author Jonny Steinberg explored their origins and codes in his 2004 book, "The Number," detailing how different gangs fill particular roles in the prison hierarchy.

When Roux told the Pretoria High Court his client had been threatened by a general from the 26s, he was warning that Pistorius was allegedly being targeted by the gang that specializes in robbery, smuggling and financial crimes. According to a website dedicated to tracking and understanding prison gangs, “the 26s keep the prisons alive and are responsible for acquiring supplies of money, drugs, cigarettes and other luxuries and [are] known for beating the system.”

But Pistorius has been placed in a single-person cell in a small ward — South Africa's Times reports that there are currently nine other inmates in the hospital wing where Pistorius is being held — and with money and influence on his side, he appears likely to remain below the gangs' radar.