Pollsmoor Prison, officially, Pollsmoor Maximum Security Prison is a prison in the Cape Town suburb of Tokai in South Africa. Nelson Mandela was the most famous inmate of the prison. He described Pollsmoor Prison as "the truth of Oscar Wilde's haunting line about the tent of blue that prisoners call the sky."Pollsmoor is a maximum security prison with little means in the way of escape. Some of South Africa's most dangerous criminals are held in Pollsmoor Prison. The prison has a staff of 1,278 and the capacity to accommodate 4,336 offenders, but the current inmate population is over 7,000 (a figure which fluctuates daily).Marlene Lehnberg, known as The Scissor Murderess served her sentence in Pollsmoor but was paroled in 1986. Walter Sisulu and Ahmed Kathrada, both anti-apartheid activists, were also incarcerated at Pollsmoor. Alan Boesak served his prison term here after he was convicted of fraud in 2000.Structure of the prisonSince it was established in 1964, the prison has been systematically expanded, so that Pollsmoor today comprises five prisons: The Admission Centre serves a number of the courts in the Cape Peninsula . Medium A Prison houses both awaiting trial and sentenced juveniles between the ages of 14 and 17. Medium B Prison houses sentenced adult males. Medium C Prison houses sentenced adult males with sentences of up to a year, sentenced adult males on day-parole or soon-to-be-released males. The Female Prison houses juvenile and adult women, both awaiting-trial and sentenced. There are also a number of infants under the age of 2 living in the Female Prison.
