THIS year has already seen scores of injuries and fatalities within South African prison walls.

• On January 8, about 50 inmates at Groenpunt Prison in Free State were injured in a stampede when police entered the facility.

A riot broke out late that day when prisoners refused to eat and started setting fires. An inmate later died.

• On January 18, two inmates were killed and 65 were injured in a mass fight started by gangsters in a Port Elizabeth jail.

Two awaiting trial detainees died and 17 were hospitalised.

• On January 25, a Pollsmoor Prison inmate was stabbed 21 times during a gang fight which left nine others injured. Five offenders were hospitalised.
• It was the second fight that had broken out at Pollsmoor that week.