Sloth-Nielsen, Julia2013-11-012013-11-012005Sloth-Nielsen, J. (2005). Policy and practice in South African prisons: an update. Law, Democracy & Development, 9 (1): 1-1910281055http://hdl.handle.net/10566/790Julia Sloth-Nielsen points to challenges in the correctional system that South Africa's new constitutional democracy was faced with, including the deep-rooted militaristic tradition that needed to be replaced and the transformation in staff representativeness. She discusses various aspects of prison building design, including the still controversial privatisation of two newly built prisons and the prospect that the so-called 'New Generation' prisons may cost far more than originally envisaged. Considerable attention is paid to the development of the 2005 White Paper, which aims to change comprehensively the focus of the sector. The article notes the enormity of the challenges in implementing the philosophy of rehabilitation and reintegration as core objectives of corrections.en© 2005 Sloth-Nielsen; licensee University of the Western Cape. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Policy reviewPrisonsArticle