ALL right-thinking people agree that our prisons have to move away from being facilities meant to merely lock up those that have found themselves in conflict with the law.

We have to move to a situation where the main priority of correctional facilities is to rehabilitate offenders.

The ANC-led government is in total agreement with this view and the White Paper on corrections attests to that.

However, the effectiveness of re-education or rehabilitation is a function of the environment in which it takes place.

The proposition that rehabilitation stems from the attitude of the offenders themselves have merit. But its shortcoming is that it incorrectly infers that attitude is an immutable trait that cannot be altered or influenced by environmental factors.

There is sufficient evidence to prove that the majority of offenders who return to their old ways after serving terms commit worse crimes than before. Many become career criminals. Some observers say that correctional centres have become "universities of crime".

Clearly, when a measure meant to achieve a prescribed outcome achieves its opposite, we should ask why is society more vulnerable to a person after he serves time?

The answer lies in another question - who controls prison life? Can the state validly claim to be in control after "shutdown" and staff leave at the end of the day?

It is common knowledge that correctional officials have limited control over prison life after "shut down" when a shadow system of governance takes over. Those who during the day appear no different in status than others, gradually occupy their positions according to hierarchy within the gang system.

Indigenous languages become replaced with Shalambom, which legitimises the ignorance of the law and upholds the law of gang members, which is designed to be an antithesis of government law.

This transmogrification discriminates against non-gang members and vulnerable inmates by exposing them to abuse by the gangs. This sub-culture does not only use violence to coerce others to abide by its code, but uses brutality to demonstrate eligibility for higher ranking.

So any hope of rehabilitation fizzle because in many instances, the gangs and not the State control prison life at certain times.

Our constitutional democracy is established on the values of human dignity, equality and freedom. The right to human dignity demands that the worth and value of individuals are acknowledged.

Human dignity is a source of one's innate rights to personal integrity. There is a legitimate expectation that the dignity of vulnerable inmates should not be violated and the onus is on the State to protect the human dignity of inmates.

The state has to guarantee not only the safety of all inmates, but their bodily integrity should not be more violated than it already has by their limitation of freedom of movement.

The boni mores cannot promote that because people have committed crime, they should be treated in a degrading and humiliating manner. It is not correct that husbands are raped and subdued as "wives" of gangs to save their lives.

But we acknowledge that as much as those that are abused have rights, so do those who allegedly perpetrate that abuse.

Section 14 of the Constitution guarantees the general right to privacy. The courts recognise the right to privacy as an independent personality right that is part of the concept of dignity. At common-law the breach of a person's right to privacy constitutes an iniuria.

It occurs when there is an unlawful intrusion on one's privacy or an unlawful disclosure of private facts about a person.

The state must ensure the security of all inmates in its facilities. To protect inmates from dehumanisation and degradation, the state should use reasonable means.

We submit and argue strongly that it is not unreasonable to instal surveillance cameras in prison cells to record all activities at all times and use the footage to establish culpability and punish perpetrators of abuse.

An offender who perpetrates crimes in prison does not have a legitimate expectation of privacy as such activity does not occur in the inner sanctum, but near the edge of the privacy continuum.

Prison cells, though they could be classified as private spaces, are also not only shared, but communal spaces. But even if inmates have a legitimate expectation of privacy, such expectation does not trump the legitimate expectation of protection of dignity and life for vulnerable inmates.

In terms of Section 36 of the Constitution, no right is omnipotent; all rights may be limited to the extent that it is reasonable and justifiable to do so in democratic society based on human dignity, equality and freedom.

We contend that the right to protection against rape and murder of vulnerable inmates should weigh more than the right to protection against intrusion of personal space. It is in this spirit that we say that installing surveillance cameras as a means to prevent prison rape and death cannot be regarded as unnecessary or disproportionate. Let's start the debate.

• Smith is chairman of parliament's portfolio committee on correctional services