Prison in SA is Worse Than Hell

So, you want to be a gangster? So, you have no choices? So, you were born into a life so toxic and dysfunctional that not being born would have been a better option? Blame it on apartheid, sure. Blame it on incompetent parenting, sure. Blame it on… Well, I guess we can blame it on any number of very valid reasons why our fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, and our children land up in jail.

Enough Already

Stop blaming the system, stop blaming the past, stop blaming, period. It is what it is and we, right now, have to change the system and it begins by understanding the horrific underlying conditions that have made us into this hot mess of beautiful, amazing and generationally traumatized communities who continue to fight and oppress each other, yes, I said each other! The psychology is out there (online). You don’t have to be a genius to figure out that 500 years of generational trauma will lead to the creation of monsters that even your worst nightmares will be afraid of.

Do not end up in jail

I came across a video online about a guy called Turner Adams from Lavender Hill. He was being interviewed on the Wide Awake Podcast, and watching it was like watching an un-believable horror movie which you want to believe is a fantasy, but you realise that everything he says is probably true and actually happened. It was like watching something intensely gross, horrifying, sick, sad and poignant, which you know you shouldn’t be watching, but you can’t look away.

Someone close to me had a mercifully brief stay in Pollsmoor recently and while he did not go into details of his short visit, it reminded me of Turner Adams.

I want to share this with you so that you are frightened to your core, so that you will do everything in your power to keep your loved ones out of prison, because, lets face it, if we, who love them, give up on them, what chance do they have. We need to break this cycle now, ‘cos the future is already unfolding and we will need our men, women and children to be ready, not incarcerated.

Rape, murder, drugs.

I wanted to share, briefly, Turner Adams experience as a cautionary tale. Watch the whole podcast if you dare. He did not start off life as a thug and his descent into hell can be directly traced back to the forced removal of his family from District Six. Here is a synopsis of the brutal reality of  his time in Pollsmoor Prison.

Turner Adams (pic Wide Awake Podcast)

Rape is a tool of violence and power. Young men (and not so young ones) are raped for a variety of reasons, to instill fear, to break their spirit, to have the rapist initiated into a gang, or simply just for evil fun. Some rape victims are left broken former shells of what they used to be or could have been.

Others snap and go mental and attack their rapist, sometimes killing them.

Drug use in prison is rife and the actual drugs are often concealed and move about the prison by hiding it in someone’s anus. Turner says he was threatened with being gang raped unless he agreed to conceal drugs in this way. Prisons are grossly overcrowded and rapes and even consensual sex often happens literally right under your nose.

The rape victim becomes the rapist

To survive in hell, you have to become like the devil. It’s a survival game and unless you have been in a situation where your life is being threatened to get you to do the most evil of things, it might be best not to judge. But better still would be not to put yourself in that position in the first place. Stay out of jail at all costs.

Turner talks about how, eventually, after killing many times in prison, he moved up the ranks and he, himself dispensed “justice and retribution” by raping other inmates.

What is interesting about Turner is that he is an eloquent and empathetic speaker and you can’t help but be mesmerized by his journey, which saw him released from prison eventually and ending up in movies. He passed away after succumbing to a battle with tuberculosis in 2024 and the headlines spoke about an individual who survived hell and emerged as an inspiration to the community.

Female inmates at Pollsmoor

This is just a tiny insight into life in prison, there are all kinds of other horrors there. There are also success stories where inmates, male and female, have turned their lives around by obtaining matric or degrees while in prison or learning a new trade to sustain themselves once out of prison.

The point is, lets avoid having to go to prison to be the catalyst for changing your life.

Turner is not the fist of us to go through the horrors of hell and survive, and he won’t be the last. But maybe his story will make you hold on to your loved ones tighter, give them a better chance, support them stronger when they stumble and fall, not judge them too harshly, and guide them to make better choices, and stay out of jail.