The SA Institute of Race Relations says the proportion of South African prisoners serving sentences longer than 10 years has increased by more than 2,400% between 1995 and 2011.
It says the number of prisoners serving sentences shorter than 6 months has decreased by 90%, while those serving between 5 and 7 years had also decreased, by more than 40 pecernt.
Researcher Kervin Lebone says there has, however, been a large increase in the number of prisoners serving long sentences, most notably life sentences.
The number of people serving life sentences had increased from 433 in 1995 to 10,349 by 2011.
Lebone agrees that the current situation is a reflection of the increase in violent crime and the subsequent introduction of minimum sentence legislation introduced in 1997.
"The minimum sentence legislation was limited to very serious crimes such as car hijaking aggravated robbery and also for murder, attempted murders and rape. So the courts have responded to the legislation by sentencing people involved in for instance a cash heist to much longer sentences than in the past" Lebone said.
