Wits Journalism students step inside Kgosi Mampuru II Correctional Centre, confronting the haunting legacy of South Africa’s penal history.
Wits Journalism students visited Kgosi Mampuru II prison and learned about inmate survival, punishment, and daily life behind bars.
They climbed the 52 steps to the gallows, reflecting on the country’s execution history and its human cost.
The gates at Kgosi Mampuru II don’t simply close, they announce an ending. It is a metallic finality that vibrates in your marrow, leaving an unshakable awareness of what it means to be confined, and the fragile privilege of walking free. Exactly at 10:42 am on April 15, 2026, 17 of us from the Wits Journalism programme stepped through that threshold. We traded lecture halls for a space defined by the physics of control. As a student journalist, I am trained to observe, but here, the walls watch you back. An involuntarily warning began to ring in my ears, an indirect message from the architecture itself, “Do not come here.”
Our tour guide, Dimakatso, unveiled a world of “jail language” and survival. She described “two full chickens”, prison slang for the two boiled eggs served with pap at 14: 00 pm which would be your last meal until the next day. She showed us how inmates creatively hollowed Sunlight soap to hide cell phones. In the era of AI, these inmates use primitive ingenuity to stay connected. Sitting on benches crafted by prisoners, I felt a sting of irony, for someone like me, only taught to build cardboard bridges at school, these prisoners learn to build from scratch to survive, and gain skills that might one day free them from that space.
The atmosphere turned clinical and cruel when Dimakatso introduced the “Triangle Step”. She described hot water-soaked wood being bent during a beating, making my body involuntary cringe. My mind flashed to the moment of impact, feeling the sting of a system that once relied on pain as its primary language. Hanging on the triangle step was a bloodstained cloth, an enduring reminder of punishment inflicted on the condemned. I cannot omit this, as it questions what I was never taught in high school. This history was deliberately left out, it sparked questions about justice, pain, and how history is curated.
Next, we moved to the gallows. Mr. Kgomo told us to “fasten our emotional seatbelts”, a fitting warning. We transitioned from the museum of survival to the tomb of execution. I stood before the names on the wall, thinking of Section 11 of the South African Constitution: the right to life. I felt a wave of relief; the 1996 abolition of the death penalty had ended this brutal form of justice. Yet, as we approach April 27, Freedom Day, the irony burns: this day marks our liberation, but these gallows mark how many never lived to see it. Yet, the past is not distant. Between 1902 and 1989, roughly 3,500 people were executed, a grim reminder of state-sanctioned brutality. As I ascended the 52 steps, I imagined faces, some praying, some screaming, others singing hymns, climbing those heavy stairs. By step 52, my chest felt like it was crushed, a tear slipped unnoticed, masking my professionalism.
At the top, the brutality became clinical, detached from emotion. I learned how a prisoner’s BMI (body mass index) was used to select the correct noose, and how a pulse after the fall meant the execution was not complete. We stood where Solomon Mahlangu, whose blood nourished the “tree of freedom”, once stood. As the gates hissed shut behind us, and warnings lingered, I became haunted. The 52 steps symbolise not only punishment but a society still grappling with its past, a past where thousands paid the ultimate price between 1902 and 1989. Is this reflection of the gallows? It is a mirror that confronts the dark architecture of consequence, forcing us to question the true weight of justice and the whispers of history that echo through these steps.
19 : 00 pm, execution time starts. Photo by: Emadul Islam Akash. (Pexels)
We celebrate Freedom Day on April 27, 2026, however, the 52 steps remind us that freedom was counted out in bodies long before it was counted in ballots.
FEATURED IMAGE: Journalism and Media Studies Honours students from Wits University enter Kgosi Mampuru II Management Area. Photo by: Alice Dhlamini.
In the space of just a few weeks, South Africa has been shaken by a flurry of political scandals, arrests, assassinations, and suspensions that read like the script of a crime thriller. But this is not fiction. From the corridors of government to the backrooms of political parties, we are witnessing either the collapse of our democratic institutions or the long-overdue reckoning with the criminalisation of politics. The real question is: is the rot finally being exposed?
One of the explosive claims made by KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi was that when Vusumuzi “Cat” Matlala was arrested, police discovered messages on his devices indicating he was receiving inside information from police “fixers”, including meetings arranged with suspended Police Minister Senzo Mchunu.
Cat Matlala, a name tied to shady tenders, including one linked to murdered whistleblower Babita Deokaran, has most recently received a tender with Tshwane SAPS. His case is not an outlier. It is part of a wider, disturbing pattern: police officials enabling criminal syndicates, with political figures complicit in the cover-up.
The suspension of Minister of Police Senzo Mchunu following Mkhwanazi’s damning claims is only the beginning. It is alleged that Mchunu protected criminal networks within the police turning the justice system into the very problem it should be solving. Journalist Mandy Wiener has called the positions of police minister and national commissioner a “poisoned chalice” and these revelations seem to prove it. Yet the idea of high-ranking police figures colluding with criminals is not new. Think Jackie Selebi and Radovan Krejcir. This is a cycle we have seen before.
Shortly after Mchunu’s suspension, Patriotic Alliance (PA) deputy leader Kenny Kunene, until recently a PR councillor in the City of Johannesburg, was found in the company of Katiso “KT” Molefe, the alleged mastermind behind DJ Sumbody’s assassination. Kunene claimed he was escorting a journalist – yet that journalist has never reported on what would have been the scoop of a lifetime: Kunene being found at Molefe’s house during the arrest.
Kunene resigned, and the mayor has claimed the city’s “hands are tied.” This incident is yet another glimpse into the entanglement of political office and gangsterism.
Meanwhile, Gauteng Police Commissioner Fannie Masemola is reported to have attempted to intervene in Matlala’s arrest corroborating Mkhwanazi’s assertion that parts of the police are proverbially in bed with criminals. The system is protecting itself.
This past week, the Minister of Higher Education, Nobuhle Nkabane, resigned after being accused of lying to Parliament’s portfolio committee regarding the appointment of SETA board members. Her resignation means she escapes the very accountability that parliamentary oversight was supposed to ensure.
These are not isolated incidents. The list grows longer: the assassination of whistleblowers and construction mafia figures, allegations within the ANC, U.S. Treasury sanctions, and a justice system that increasingly appears either captured or hollowed out.
It is no coincidence that as state capacity erodes, criminal networks rise. The ANC, weakened and divided, can no longer police its own ranks let alone govern ethically. Political office is being used to legitimise criminal empires. Today’s councillors were yesterday’s construction mafia bosses. And tomorrow’s ministers? Who knows.
So what? This erosion of the line between politics and crime puts South Africa on the brink. As citizens lose faith in democratic systems, they may begin to embrace authoritarianism or strongman figures who promise order through force. The Patriotic Alliance’s recent calls to reinstate the death penalty while its leaders are under scrutiny are telling.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has responded by firing some implicated officials and promising yet another commission of inquiry. But after years of unattended recommendations gathering dust on his desk, society has little reason to believe that justice will follow.
Firoz Cachalia, a former ANC politician and now a Wits law professor, has been appointed interim Police Minister. He enters a poisoned environment, one where few believe the rule of law still applies evenly. Will he win public confidence in a country where institutions seem broken?
This last month has exposed a web of criminality so vast and interconnected that each new scandal feels less shocking than the last. Viewed in isolation, these incidents may appear as individual failures but step back, and the picture becomes clearer: a democracy under siege from within.
We cannot afford to normalise this rot. The fight against corruption must be unrelenting – not just for the sake of good governance, but for the survival of our democracy.
The IPID has dropped its charges against KZN’s Provincial Police Commissioner due to a lack of evidence.
The Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) has officially dropped its charges against the Provincial Police Commissioner of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN). The case, launched on March 19, was a result of an anonymous tip off against Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi.
According to EyeWitness News, he was accused of having cleared allegations against a prison official, Feroz Khan, who was alleged to have interfered in a drug dealing case.
There’s been a lot of noise around Mkhwanazi lately. Under his leadership, KZN has seen a more assertive police force that isn’t afraid to take the fight to criminals. As recent as January 30, the police were involved in a shootout with Inanda West Gang, a notorious gang that has been terrorising communities in northern Durban.
Mkhwanazi has publicly declared war on gang crime and gun violence, with over 100 suspects getting killed during confrontations with KZN police units. It’s no surprise that figures like National Assembly Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee of Police Ian Cameron have raised concerns about the political undertones of the IPID’s case against Mkhwanazi.
There are questions worth asking. Was this ever really about justice, or just a way to sideline a cop who doesn’t play politics? The latest crime stats from the South African Police Service (SAPS), ranging from October to December 2024, show a 1.6% decrease in contact crime. KZN showed a significant decrease in murders by 9.5% amongst other contact-related crimes.
Some commentators have tried to paint his approach as ruthless and unduly lethal, with the DA leading the charge of pressuring SAPS to implement body cams for everyday operations. However, if that means showing up, cracking down on drug networks and, sending a clear message to criminals, then maybe it’s what the rest of the country needs to adapt to.
Recent data from the IPID in the fiscal year of 2023-2024 reported significant concerns regarding the use of force by the South African Police Service (SAPS) and they additionally reported 187 deaths resulting from police action in KZN, the highest in all provinces. This alarming number was countered by Minister of Police Senzo Mchunu, who argues that these were results of police acting in self-defence against suspects.
Law enforcement can’t be effective when it’s second-guessed at every turn by people who’ve never been put in highly threatening situations. Communities under siege from gangs and drug dealers don’t need long lectures, they need decisive action. Mkhwanazi has been open in recent interviews about the fact that being soft on crime simply doesn’t work in this country and he’s not wrong.
Perhaps, it is time we let more leaders like him do just that, even if we disagree with the methods at hand. A stronger law enforcement system is needed now more than ever, with a balanced reform of policing and law enforcement protocols. That will assist in ensuring that all crime is addressed fairly, immediately and without bias against SAPS.
FEATURED IMAGE: Katlego Makhutle. Photo: File/Paul Botes
Crime has for many years been a troubling shadow that looms over South Africa. A group of individuals in Mayfair have decided that crime in their area is too great a task for the police to tackle alone. It is here that many community members choose to take an active approach to the safety of their neighbourhood. While this can be seen as a noble cause, it has proven difficult to navigate a relationship with the community, the police and those involved in community policing and this is very evident in the Brixton area.
Another busy Friday night at the Brixton police station, it is 11pm and already scores of people are filling up in the entrance to the station. A police officer walks in shoving a man through the room as he walks past, people tear their attention away from what is in front of them to his cuffed hands. He tries to hide his face but in that second nobody seems to care and return to demanding attention from those behind the counter.
In a sea of uniforms there are a few men and woman who have offered their time to come out on the weekend to help lighten the load. Most of them also form part of the neighbourhood watch in the Mayfair and Mayfair West region and take shifts in the evenings patrolling the area. These are some the members of the Brixton Community Policing Forum (CPF).
LOOKING OUT: Aboo Mohammed, a police reservist, who in his free time offers to patrol the Mayfair and Brixton areas. Photo: Raquel De Canha
Community tackle crime
The Brixton CPF are ordinary people taking time out of their lives to keep their community safe, a community made up mostly of foreign nationals and a community that traditionally does not trust the local police. More often then not it is members of the CPF who are first on the scene and who residents will call when they need assistance.
Every first Tuesday of the month those involved in the CPF for Ward 69, which consists of Mayfair, Crosby, Brixton, Melville, Vrededorp and Auckland Park, meet at the Brixton police station. All members sit around a table in one of the station’s boardrooms, along with members of the Brixton police, to discuss crime in the area and possible solutions. It is at this forum that community members come to air their grievances and seek advice or assistance from the CPF as well as the police. These range from issues such as looting to crime tip-offs and possible solutions to these problems. The group discusses the crimes that were reported over the past month, looking for any patterns and possible strategies to tackle these crimes.
POLICEMAN BY NIGHT: Warrant officers Mohammed and Kruger who have been reservists for almost 20 years at the Brixton police station. Photo: Raquel De Canha
Dealing with tension
At a CPF meeting, some members of the police force are attentive while others sit slouched against the wall on their cellphones. This is until a community member suggests that the police are not doing enough. Suddenly the tension in the room increases and the chairperson of the CPF, Adiel Majam, has to ensure that the meeting remains calm.
“The reality is people are angry and expect immediate attention and as a chairperson I cannot be taking sides,” says Majam. He goes on to explain that his role is to foster a relationship between the community and the police. This is the best way to help the CPF get what they require from the police.
The police station is located in Brixton in the western part of Johannesburg. It was recognised as a low-income “whites only” area during the apartheid era. During the 1970s and 1980s the Brixton station was well known for its Murder and Robbery unit. It was seen as a tough unit and was feared by many in Johannesburg because of rumours of torture at the station. In 2001 it was forced to shut down as part of a plan to transform the police and close units that were believed to be inefficient.
“There has been a clear transformation in the police in recent years, new policies have been introduced around the constitution and the SAPS has become a service that is demilitarised,” explains Warrant Officer Aboo Mohamed.
A racially mixed community
Today the community is racially mixed. Tertiary institutions surround the area and as a result the suburb is inhabited by many students. Today the station looks towards transforming not just internally but also transforming its relationship with the community, and welcomes the introduction of bodies like the CPF to aid them in achieving these goals.
“It really is heroic what these men and women do,” says Mohamed. Mohamed is a police reservist and member of the Mayfair and Brixton CPF. He joined the community watch in 1994 and chose to become a police reservist in 1995.
Mohamed has lived in Mayfair for over 20 years and has no plans to leave the area despite the negative perception of Mayfair and the current crime increase. “I have lived many places but I somehow always land up back in Mayfair. This will always be home.” Mohamed believes that because the area is so central, the relationship he has with the community, the memories it holds as well as its proximity to mosques, Mayfair is the perfect place for him and his family.
With South Africa’s high crime rate, the concept of having neighbourhood watches and community police forums is not new. Like Mohamed, for some, being a part of community watches is a way to help combat crime in their communities and monitor the performance of the local police stations.
Lack of trust in police
Across the road from the Mohameds’ home is a small supermarket. During the day customers roam in and out of the store freely. However, at 5pm the owner Mohammad Hisham closes the store’s security gates. He carries on trading into the night with people passing cash through the security gates in exchange for goods.
Hisham explains that this wasn’t always the case. When he first moved to Mayfair from Bangladesh and opened the store, he would leave the gates open until they called it a night. But, in the three years that he has been working here, they have been attacked more than 20 times and have had countless instances of shoplifting. This resulted in them having to serve people through the security gates for safety.
In broken English, Hisham says by closing these security gates he loses business but he has to choose between his safety and making money. “Customers don’t like to come here if the gate is closed, but if we don’t close it, we get trouble,” says Hisham.
While criminals plague shop owners like Hisham, he says the only police office he will call for help is Warrant Officer Mohamed, who he calls “uncle”. “If I have a problem I call uncle, some people if they call the police they never come. They [criminals] rob you, they run away go home and relax and only then the police come. ”
Because of their disillusionment towards the police, it is people like these who choose to not report crimes. “Criminals will often target certain shop owners because they know that they will not report it. They choose to not report it either because they feel the police will harass them or they will not come at all,” explains Mohamed.
A decline in crime
LOCKED AND LOADED: Warrant Officer Kruger helping the SAPS by cleaning a police officer’s gun at the Brixton police station before he begins his patrol of the area. Photo: Raquel De Canha
According to Stats SA, crimes in the Brixton area have over the past 10 years been steadily decreasing. In the past year, however, there has been an increase in reported crime, to 766 crimes in 2015 from the previous year.
There are some crimes that are more reliable than others when it comes to how they affect crime statistics, says Johan Burger, a senior researcher for the crime and justice programme at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS).
When looking at the statistics one should look at the types of crimes that are reported, these are either what is known as social public crime or property crimes. Social public crime includes murder, common assault, assault with intention to cause grievous bodily harm and sexual offences. Property crimes include robbery, theft of motor vehicles and stock theft. More often than not property crimes will be reported for insurance purposes, making them the most reliable statistics to look at, Burger says. Social public crimes are less reliable, with the exception of murder as this needs to be reported for death certificate purposes.
In the Brixton area, there has been a stable trend in property crimes. In the past five years most of these crimes have experienced changes both positive and negative as CPF chairperson Majam says: “Brixton crime has experienced peaks and valleys over the past couple of years.”
“The best way to look at crime stats is to do so over a long-term basis,” Burger says.
Looking at social public crimes, there is a clear downward trend over the past five years. For example, the number of sexual offences reported were down from 62 reports in 2010 to 49 in 2015.
“What we have noticed is the crimes that have dropped are so-called social public crimes apart from murder. We have found an unexplained drop in these crimes. It is hard to go by these stats, they are not completely credible,” says Burger. He suggests the problem comes from people not reporting these crimes due to a lack of trust in the police by the community.
“It is more of a case of people increasingly not reporting the crimes, either because they have no confidence in the police and/or believe the police have no interest in solving the crimes,” says Burger.
As seen with shop owner Hisham, trust in the police is lacking in the community and this is further proven by resident and wife of Warrant Officer Mohamed, Sumaya Mohamed: “When the reservists are out we see a lot more drive to make changes, but the normal police have shown nothing that will give you confidence in them [the SAPS].”
“We as a neighbourhood watch have to actively encourage people to report their complaints. So the stats are credible, the statistics are nowhere near what happens in the neighbourhood,” says React member Mohammed Vally. React is an umbrella body, formed in the Brixton area, consisting of neighbourhood watches.
FIRST ON THE SCENE: Members of the Booysens neighborhood watch, who were the first to arrive at the scene of an accident. A car drove into a small dam and resulted in one fatality near Crown Mines. Photo: Raquel De Canha
Crime perception vs reality
Vally suggests that the lack of trust in the police stems, in part, from the lack of resources available to the police. As a result the neighbourhood watches and CPFs need to intervene: “If we don’t intervene then nobody will.” As a result, Vally says, there is a shift in confidence from the police to these community policing bodies.
Vally says there is some racial tension in the area. “There is no love lost in certain segments of the community and because of that, we appear to be a splintered community.” He says this makes the community vulnerable to criminal activity.
Sumaya Mohamed believes the problem with Mayfair lies with foreigners.
“There are too many foreigners in the area. Mayfair was never like this, it has become a dumping zone. Mayfair needs to get cleaned up,” she says.
South-African born community members and the SAPS have different perceptions of crime in Mayfair. Over the past 20 years, Mayfair has become a landing spot for many foreigners who have started businesses, built families and become a community. People from all parts of the world have settled in Mayfair, people from Egypt, Ethiopia, Pakistan and Somalia. The common perception of South African community members is that foreigners are to blame for crime in the area.
But foreigners are not the only ones perceived to be driving crime in the area as South African criminals are drawn to Mayfair.
“Criminals find a safe haven here. The access to these neighbourhoods is quite easy. The ability for a criminal to escape to the area makes this an alluring place for them,” says the neighbourhood watch’s Vally.
CPF chairperson Majam believes rising crime in the area is linked to opportunist criminals while Warrant Officer Mohamed believes it has more to do with the hopelessness of those in the community. “It is about unemployment and desperation, people need to eat and they are struggling to feed themselves and their families,” says Mohamed.
Mohamed explains that there are many factors that play a role in crime in Mayfair, foreigners being the least of them. But the perception of crime in the area and the reality are two very different things that both parties might never agree on. This in fact may be the biggest problem with safety in the area.
FEATURED IMAGE: LOCKED AND LOADED: Warrant Officer Kruger helping the SAPS by cleaning a police officer’s gun at the Brixton police station before he begins his patrol of the area. Photo: Raquel De Canha
Since her announcement as the Democratic Alliance’s mayoral candidate for Johannesburg, Helen Zille has dominated national headlines. In this bonus episode of We Should Be Writing podcast, hosts Lulah Mapiye and Bonolo Mokonoto dissect a media meet-and-greet with the mayoral hopeful. From her extensive political résumé to her controversial public utterance, we examine why the Democratic Alliance has chosen Hellen Zille as their candidate for the 2027 local mayoral elections. Additionally, […]
