Hopolang Mokhopi
THE Lesotho Correctional Service (LCS) is struggling to contain a growing prison population, with mounting concerns that inefficiencies in the justice system, alleged corruption within the magistracy and deliberate delays in court proceedings are compounding an already dire overcrowding crisis.
The LCS says the number of inmates in its facilities is now twice its holding capacity, with more than 100 new prisoners reportedly admitted this past week.
LCS spokesperson, Assistant Superintendent Pheko Ntobane, said the Service usually received between 20 and 30 inmates daily.
The overcrowding is allegedly being fuelled by cases that repeatedly fail to proceed in the Magistrates Courts, leaving accused people languishing in custody for prolonged periods as their trials are postponed.
In some instances, police have been accused of bringing cases to court before investigations would have been completed.
Concerns have also emerged over allegations that some court cases are deliberately delayed to trigger provisions of the Speedy Court Trials Act No. 9 of 2002, which protects accused persons against prolonged detention without trial.
A source familiar with the situation told the Sunday Express that some cases were allegedly being deliberately stalled until the statutory detention period expires, making the accused eligible to seek release from custody.
Section 4 of the Speedy Court Trials Act provides protection against detention on remand beyond 60 days unless there are compelling reasons justifying continued incarceration. This places an obligation on the prosecution to justify why an accused person should remain in custody beyond the prescribed period.
The allegations come against a backdrop of growing concerns over corruption within the magistracy, including claims of missing court files, interference with case records and the unlawful release of suspects.
In July this year, Directorate on Corruption and Economic Offences (DCEO) Director-General, Brigadier-General Advocate Mantšo Sello, and Chief Justice Sakoane Sakoane publicly acknowledged corruption within the judiciary.
Adv Sello disclosed that the DCEO’s 2024/25 annual report had identified the courts as highly vulnerable to corruption, citing missing dockets, bribery and judgments allegedly being misdirected.
Justice Sakoane also admitted that corruption and bribery were taking place within the courts, warning that case files were disappearing and pages were being removed from court records.
The Chief Justice called for the digitisation of court records to prevent files and information from being manipulated or disappearing.
The concerns are not new. In March 2022, the Judicial Officers Association of Lesotho (JOALE) announced an investigation into allegations that a magistrate had fraudulently released a murder and armed robbery suspect who had been remanded in custody by another magistrate.
The allegations arose after Magistrate Itumeleng Letsika told the Judicial Service Commission that Ntsane Motumi, whom she had remanded in custody, was released by another magistrate without her knowledge. She also raised concerns that the suspect’s case file had mysteriously disappeared, forcing her to work from a dummy file that contained only one charge instead of the multiple charges she knew he faced.
JOALE subsequently investigated death threats allegedly made against Magistrate Letsika after she raised the concerns.
The allegations of corruption and manipulation of court processes raise further questions about the contribution of the justice system to the growing prison population and whether delays are simply administrative failures or, in some instances, deliberate.
Speaking to the Sunday Express this past week, Ass Supt Ntobane said the LCS continued to receive more inmates than it released.
He said the LCS had received approximately 109 new inmates over the past week, while between 20 and 30 people were admitted daily, with numbers sometimes rising because of cases involving mob justice.
Ass Supt Ntobane was reluctant to disclose the exact number of inmates but confirmed that the prison population was approximately double its capacity.
“For security reasons, I cannot disclose the number on inmates in LCS facilities. What I can say is that we have 100 percent overcrowding. For instance, if we are supposed to have 20, there are about 40,” Ass Supt Ntobane said.
He attributed much of the congestion to cases that repeatedly fail to proceed because of the absence of magistrates, lawyers, prosecutors and police officers.
He said these challenges forced the LCS to repeatedly return accused persons to court, only for their cases to be postponed again.
“Our job is to bring the person back before court again after 14 days,” he said.
Ntobane said the problem was not confined to magistrates, as lawyers and prosecutors also contributed to the delays.
He said accused persons sometimes appeared before different magistrates, only to be told that they would remain on remand because that was what the previous magistrate had directed.
“There is one lady whose case has no convincing evidence. She keeps coming back because it is said the prosecutor or the magistrate is absent,” he said.
He questioned why cases were repeatedly postponed when prosecutors maintained that they had sufficient evidence to proceed.
“People are suffering,” he said.
Ntobane also pointed to the country’s worsening crime situation, citing killings reported during the week in Mafeteng, Ha Thetsane and Mapoteng.
He said the number of people being admitted to correctional facilities was significantly higher than those being released, making it increasingly difficult for the LCS to manage its population.
Overcrowding, a longstanding crisis
The current situation reflects a longstanding crisis within the correctional system.
In August 2025, the Sunday Express reported that the LCS was still battling overcrowding despite releasing 240 inmates through an amnesty exercise.
Correctional facilities at the time housed 2169 male inmates, 89 female inmates, 992 juveniles and 783 mentally ill inmates.
The figures highlighted the scale of the problem, which had persisted despite the government efforts to ease congestion through the release of prisoners.
At the time, Minister of Law and Justice Richard Ramoeletsi attributed the continued overcrowding partly to the high crime rate and the constant influx of newly convicted offenders.
“As much as we have released 240 inmates through amnesty, overcrowding is still happening. The problem is beyond our control; it is driven by the high crime rate the country is experiencing,” Mr Ramoeletsi said.
The situation was also criticised by former Ombudsman Advocate Tlotliso Polaki in a report presented to Parliament in October 2023. She raised concerns over overcrowding which she said contributed to the high infections of Tuberculosis. She also criticised the prolonged detention of mentally ill inmates in the hospital’s Forensic Unit without periodic reviews or clear procedures for their discharge.
According to the report, some mentally ill inmates held at Mohlomi Psychiatric Hospital had not undergone mental assessments since 2019 because the country had no psychiatrist.
The Ministry of Health subsequently confirmed that it had hired a psychiatrist who had begun assessing inmates in the unit.
Infrastructure deficiencies have also contributed to the crisis, with rehabilitation tenders previously announced for Mohale’s Hoek Correctional Facility, the women’s prison and the juvenile detention centre.
TB rate drops
Ass Supt Ntobane said the rate of tuberculosis infections in correctional facilities had declined following improvements to toilets and ventilation systems.
He said renovations were continuing and that inmates were regularly screened to monitor their health.
He credited increased support from the Ministry of Health for helping the Service identify illnesses earlier and improve the management of inmates’ health.
“Now that the Ministry of Health is helping us more often, we are able to detect problems early, unlike before when we only noticed them late. It helps us to identify the problem early,” he said.
Community service could help
Ass Supt Ntobane said the reintroduction of community service sentences could also ease pressure on correctional facilities, particularly by keeping people convicted of minor offences out of prison.
He said some offenders could serve their sentences through supervised community work without necessarily being incarcerated.
“Someone could be sentenced and still serve his punishment without entering prison. It would still serve as a corrective measure as such person would be serving punishment,” he said.
However, he cautioned that community service would require the recruitment of personnel to supervise offenders, as traditional leaders could not shoulder the responsibility alone.
He said such an arrangement would help reduce the prison population while ensuring that offenders still served their sentences.