KLERKSDORP - Correctional Services has stepped up security at its facilities ahead of the festive season.
On Tuesday night, National Commissioner Makgothi Thobakgale led a search operation at Klerksdorp Correctional Centre.
The operation is aiming to remove illegal items and improve safety inside the facility.
Among those items found are cellphones, chargers, dagga and salt, which Thobakgala said will be tested.
"According to indication there is still more that we will find because some of the offenders are actually declaring what they have to the search team," he said.
In an article published on eNCA in August, Correctional Services Minister Pieter Groenewald painted a grim picture of facilities in South Africa.
READ | 'All of us must get rid of this evil of gangsterism' - Groenewald
This was amid growing debate over whether they are actually disrupting organised crime or simply relocating its leadership behind bars.
Groenewald previously indicated that several gang members have never been in prison, which also points to poor communities being used as breeding grounds where they then begin to recruit individuals.
Some of these individuals, he said, have access to prisoners, with Groenewald admitting that gang leaders continue directing criminal activity from prison, particularly through illegally obtained cellphones.