• Login
    View Item 
    •   NWU-IR Home
    • Journals
    • PER: Potchefstroom Electronic Law Journal
    • PER: 2015 Volume 18 No 2
    • View Item
    •   NWU-IR Home
    • Journals
    • PER: Potchefstroom Electronic Law Journal
    • PER: 2015 Volume 18 No 2
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Apartheid's Alcatraz: the Barberton Prison Complex during the early 1980s - Part one

    Thumbnail
    View/Open
    2015(18)2Peté1(ART).pdf (443.9Kb)
    Date
    2015
    Author
    Peté, Stephen Allister
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Abstract
    The purpose of this two-part article is to examine in detail the public discourse surrounding the Barberton Prison Complex during the early 1980s, at the height of the apartheid era. The prisons within the Barberton Prison Complex were notorious as being among the most punitive of the many prisons within apartheid South Africa. Barberton was the place to which the most dangerous and intractable prisoners were sent to serve their sentences, making it apartheid's "Alcatraz". The focus of this article is on the treatment of "normal" as opposed to "political" prisoners during the period in question, allowing the "voices" of ordinary prisoners – often sidelined and silenced – to be brought to the fore. The Barberton Prison Complex is examined through the lens of public discourse, as reflected in a wide range of South African newspapers published at the time. By analysing a large number of reports dealing with events at Barberton during the period in question, in both English and Afrikaans language newspapers, as well as in both politically conservative and politically liberal newspapers, this article attempts to capture both the "smell" and the "feel" of what it was like to be imprisoned in one of apartheid's toughest prison complexes. Furthermore, this article seeks to show that – despite legislative measures restricting the publication of information on conditions inside apartheid prisons – the press was able to provide a steady stream of information to the South African public on the shocking events which occurred at Barberton during the period in question. Part One of this article deals with the deaths of three prisoners and the injury of many others during a day of violence at the Barberton prison farm on 29 December 1982, as well as the broader political implications of the criminal trial - known as the "heat exhaustion trial" - which followed. It is contended that the events surrounding the infamous "heat exhaustion trial" may be seen as a kind of metaphor for the apartheid system itself, as it began to unravel during the 1980s.
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/10394/14339
    Collections
    • PER: 2015 Volume 18 No 2 [12]

    Related items

    Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.

    • Thumbnail

      The rights of children born in prison or living with a parent in prison : a child centred approach 

      Shoko, Tinomuda (North-West University, 2012)
      Section 28(2) of the Constitution provides that the child’s best interests are of paramount importance in every matter concerning the child. This constitutional injunction has brought a new twist in the criminal justice ...
    • Thumbnail

      The role of the prison social worker with special reference to the implementation of a problem-solving treatment programme for juvenile delinquents at Odi District Prison in Bophuthatswana 

      Matshego, Bitsang Joyce (North-West University (South Africa), 1991)
      It is of primary importance to the Bophuthatswana Prisons Service, like it is to other institutions with the similar objectives of rehabilitation of offenders, to look into various ways of promoting the reintergration of ...
    • Thumbnail

      Mbeki, G. 1992. The prison writings of Govan Mbeki. [Boek resensie] 

      Visser, W (The South African Society of History Teaching, 1993)

    Copyright © North-West University
    Contact Us | Send Feedback
    Theme by 
    Atmire NV
     

     

    Browse

    All of NWU-IR Communities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsAdvisor/SupervisorThesis TypeThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsAdvisor/SupervisorThesis Type

    My Account

    LoginRegister

    Copyright © North-West University
    Contact Us | Send Feedback
    Theme by 
    Atmire NV