Prison administration in South Africa 1954

The United Nations resolution of 1968 condemned South Africa so this report was delivered to the United Nations with a defiant letter stating that the UN had no competence to criticise prison management (cf Horrell; Survey of Race Relations in South Africa 1969). One section addresses the "attempts to discredit the South African prison system" and implicit in the photographs of healthy young black African men being taught trades and cared for by older and wiser white men in clean modern facilities is that any complaint by them would be unforgivable ingratitude. They must be better off since leaving their slums and shanties. Vorster had been the Minister for Justice and for Police and Prisons until his elevation to Prime Minister in 1966 so it must have been doubly satisfying to see his legacy blossoming under the care of his successor, Pelser.