THE eerie feeling one gets the moment they step into the
Khami Prison Complex with its imposing high walls is testimony that the place
is not for the faint-hearted.
Situated on the outskirts of Bulawayo – the giant
maximum-security prison that houses sentenced inmates or those awaiting trial –
is the country’s second largest penitentiary and home to thousands of
prisoners, mental patients, males and females on remand.
It’s a hot Saturday afternoon and the Saturday Leisure
crew, in the company of ex-football stars, is subjected to the usual security
protocol that any other visitor goes through at the prison. Like any security
area, identification documents are requested, body searches for anything that
is deemed illegal to be in the prison complex are conducted by friendly prison
officers who effortlessly go about their job while sharing a joke or two with
one another.
Suddenly, yellow, grey, green, khaki, white and red begin
to resemble something different. These are colours for prison garb
differentiating those who have been convicted from those on remand or detained
mental patients.
Females on remand wear green while men in the same category
are clothed in khaki; convicted females are dressed in yellow while the males
wear white whereas detained mental patients are clad in grey, both male and
female.
We make our way to the prison grounds where a group of
prisoners clad in white shorts and shirts – of course in the company of prison
officers – await to play a football match against the Bulawayo Football Legends
– a team made up of former stars who played for Premier Soccer League clubs in
their heydays.
The prisoners’ football team goes by the name Khami
Metropolitan Football Club and they are ready to rub shoulders with famous
ex-footballers, some whom they know by name or reputation. For the prisoners,
the result is of no importance. Just the feeling of rubbing shoulders with
ex-footballers will remain etched in their hearts for the longest time to come.
They lost the match 1-3.
“It was such an honour playing against legends such as
Ronald Sibanda and it shows that society has not turned their backs on us even
if we committed crimes and ended up here.
“Being in prison is not easy, but when we interact with
people from outside, we remain hopeful that there’s life after we’re released,”
Sandile Makhalima says.
Sibanda, the man Makhalima seems to idolise, is a former
Amazulu, Dynamos and the senior national team midfielder.
Although Makhalima is reluctant to share with Saturday
Leisure what crime he committed, the 24-year-old still has three years left
before he is a free man.
“At my age, I still have a lot to look forward to in life
and despite the mistakes that I made, I want to be a better man and contribute
positively to society. I used to play for the Highlanders juniors before I was
arrested and if it wasn’t for crime, I believe I would be playing for a
Premiership club,” he adds.
Voted man-of-the-match by his teammates and opponents at
the end of the game, Descent Masuku is anxious of what lies ahead when he is
released next year in February.
“Growing up in Mzilikazi, I played soccer and just a few
days before I was supposed to go for trials with the Highlanders Under-18 team,
I was arrested for robbery and ended up here.
“It’s a mistake that I’ll live with for the rest of my
life, but I have to man up and try to lead a crime free life when I’m released
in February next year,” the player tells Saturday Leisure.
For a team that is coached by a fellow inmate Norbert
Amini, the Khami Metropolitan Football Club players are by all means a group of
inmates that have made peace with their incarceration and are trying hard to
make amends with the society that they wronged.
“Being prisoners, we have learnt from our mistakes and
we’re trying to show society that we can be better people, here in prison and
when we are eventually released.
“Our major challenge as a team is that we don’t have enough
soccer boots and we’d really appreciate it if a sponsor could assist us,” said
Amini.
The Bulawayo Football Legends use such matches to prove the
power of football in uniting communities and as part of its social
responsibility initiatives, they donated foodstuffs and second-hand clothes to
the prisoners.
Club secretary, Herbert Dick, a former Amazulu and Warriors
defender, says the team always looks forward to playing against the inmates and
interacting with them after the games.
“We try and organise at least two games a year with these
guys and donate the little resources that we mobilise. These guys are already
serving their sentences for the mistakes they made and it’s not helpful to turn
our backs on them,” said Dick.
The Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services (ZPCS)
emphasized that rehabilitation of prisoners is an integral part of making sure
that they do not commit crimes again once released.
Rehabilitation is defined as the process of re-educating
and retraining those who commit crime. Recently, ZPCS announced that as part of
rehabilitation processes, female prisoners will be allowed home visits under
new prison reforms.
According to the correctional services boss,
Commissioner-General Paradzai Zimondi, they are also building open prisons for
females in all provinces, starting with Mutare in Manicaland and Marondera in
Mashonaland East as part of a new emphasis on removing hard walls.
“The open prison system is more conducive for facilitating
inmates’ rehabilitation and successful reintegration given that it is at most,
serving as a halfway home. In this regard, inmates go on home leave while
serving their prison terms thereby ensuring that family relations and ties are
kept open and intact.
“As inmates go on home leave, they interact and stay with
their families thus preparing for their release. Upon release, they will not be
new persons as the re-integration process would have commenced while one would
be serving his/her prison term,” he told the media recently. Chronicle
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