Following the ravages of more than two decades of civil war, the South Sudan Prisons Service had fallen into a sorry state. "All the prisons that were built before the war were either destroyed or completely damaged during the war," said General Abel Makoi Wol, Director General of South Sudan Prison Service.

The buildings that remained were in poor physical state and packed beyond capacity, the general added. "We don't have prisons in South Sudan. What we have are 'containments'."

Human rights organizations and media have also pointed to prolonged and arbitrary detention, juveniles imprisoned with adults, poor sanitation, bad nutrition, lack of medical care, pregnant women exposed to health hazards and mentally ill inmates.

Government officials admit that conditions in the country's prisons are dire, but have argued that reports fail to give the whole picture.

"There is no denying certain things like prolonged and arbitrary detention and failure to inform inmates about their rights," said the Presidential Advisor for Legal Affairs, Telar Riing Deng, at a recent seminar in the capital Juba.

"However, when talking about humane imprisonment, you cannot just make developed countries the yardstick," he said. "The criticism should take into account attempts that we have made to correct the failings in the first year of our independence."

The seminar itself was one of many steps the government is taking to improve prisons. Under the theme "Strategies to Attaining a Humane and Accountable Prison System in South Sudan", it sought alternatives to imprisonment that would help with overcrowding.

General Wol noted that the huge numbers of prison inmates could partly be due to South Sudan's soaring population, which included many foreigners, and new forms of crime.

"We have almost 7,000 prisoners in the country," he said. "Juba Central Prison, for instance, was intended to take only 400 prisoners, but currently we have almost 1,300 inmates."

UNMISS Prisons Programme Manager Robert Leggat said the prisons service could not be faulted entirely, as it was just one – and the last – of different components in the criminal justice system.

"Any delays at any other stage in the system, whether it is delayed court proceedings, or arrests that are unlawfully made, essentially end up reflecting on the prisons service," he said.

But the service is constantly working with other actors and seeking support from partners, especially in reorganizing rehabilitation programmes for inmates and building prison officers' skills.

"The prisons service has very brilliant and forward-looking leaders who are constantly seeking to improve the situation," said Mr. Leggat.

One step forward was the 2012 decision by the national Council of Ministers to rename the prisons service the "National Corrections Service of South Sudan", a recommendation that would be instituted by the Constitutional Review Commission.

Seeking to do more than just change a name, the prisons service subsequently drafted a Strategic Development Plan, with guidance from the UNMISS Corrections Advisory Service.

Over the last six months, UNMISS has organized a series of workshops for prison officers in different states about the plan, which seeks to transform the service into a "highly professional, ethical and responsive organization that contributes to public safety and security through humane penal practices, and promotes a work culture that sustains well-motivated, dedicated and innovative staff".

Still, the development plan is a tall order to some degree, especially as some staff lack appropriate backgrounds.

"It is a challenge that many of the prisons staff started off as part of the military and sometimes have limited education and management skills," he said. "However, we are providing them with training."

"We have the Prisons Act and regulations are being drafted, but we need capacity building," said General Wol. "Even if we have the best documents ... there will still be gaps."

"We started from scratch but we are making progress," he added. "We are actually in the process of transformation."