Evidence of intensified application of pass laws has recently emerged. This has occurred at the same time as arrests by police for pass offences have fallen, according to official figures, as well as figures for prosecutions.
A report by a former prosecutor in the Pretoria Commissioners Court, and the annual report for 1980 of the Black Sash's Johannesburg Advice Office show how the decline in the official number of arrests and prosecutions masks a tighter implementation of the pass law system.
In 1980 just over 90,000 people were arrested by the police for pass offences (66,397 men and 14,653 women). This leaves out of account those arrested by Administration Board officers. In 1979 120,000 were arrested by the police (out of a total of over 203,000 arrests for pass offences).
Adam KLEIN, a former prosecutor in the Pretoria Commissioner's court has submitted to the Attorney-General a 60 page report which he wrote after resigning from the Court because of the way the pass laws were being applied.
According to the report, the Government-controlled "aid centres" were enforcing pass laws "in the dark". Introduced in the early 1970's the aid centres were meant to help "technical offenders". Mr. Klein cites the minutes of a 1974 departmental meeting which, he says, gives the impression that the primary purpose of the aid centres is to enforce the pass laws without unfavourable publicity.
According to information provided to Parliament in 1978-9, 193,082 Africans were referred to aid centres. Of these 36,325, nearly one in five, were endorsed out (that is, sent from urban areas to bantustans). Figures for the year April 1977 to March 1978 are similar: of 167,380 people referred to the aid centres, 32,525 were endorsed out.
In its annual report for 1980 the Johannesburg Advice Office of the Black Sash says: "We have never experienced a worse year than this one". The report shows a great increase in the number of people coming to the office who could not be helped. It also notes that 1980 was a "year of frustration where contrary to Ministerial statements and many promises, things have become worse for the majority in every way".
The growing number of people the office is unable to help is, according to the report, "a reflection of the greater severity with which influx control is now being enforced and of the increasing exclusion of black people who live in the bantustans from participation in the economic development of the so-called white core".
A tightening up of the system of Labour Bureaux, in line with recommendations of the Riekert Commission is one of the main causes of the situtation. Only people with a job registered with a Labour Bureau may leave the bantustans and go to the urban areas to work. They may go to the urban area only after signing a contract and will be registered for one year only. According to all reports there has been a cut back in recruitment, as recommended by the Riekert Commission. Labour Bureaux in the bantustans are being closed down and recruitment is being centralised at Labour Bureaux just inside or just outside bantustan borders ("assembly points" as recommended by the Riekert Commission).
