I’m spending a week in a South African jail for a new television series called The Prisoner. I’m not sure why the programme makers thought of me -- possibly because I’m such an unlikely candidate. My last trip abroad was to the Cannes film festival and even that felt like a dangerous thrill-ride. I’m one of nature’s city mice, rarely venturing beyond my little hidey-hole in West London. I stick religiously to my daily routine and if I get less than eight hours sleep a night I cannot function. Even a common cold sends me scurrying to the doctors. Yet in spite of this, I’m enjoying my stay in Westville prison immensely. I think this is because it feels like a proper journalistic assignment. I am no longer a metrosexual lifestyle columnist with a bad case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. I am John Pilger in prison overalls.

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The series was originally going to be called ‘The World’s Worst Hell Holes’ and it’s not hard to see why Westville was selected. To cite just one statistic, over 60 per cent of the inmates are HIV positive. Those that don’t succumb to AIDS are just as likely to catch TB -- not surprising when you consider that up to 60 prisoners are crammed into tiny cells where they’re expected to share a single lavatory. The chronic overcrowding has led the inmates to adopt a passive, reined-in manner. Everything they do is very methodical and deliberate, as though any expression of spontaneity might lead to some unforeseen -- and terrible -- consequence. One prisoner I interview -- a young black man sharing a cell in the high security section with 55 other prisoners -- says that another name for Westville is “the university of psychology”. “You can’t move in here without bumping into someone so if you want to do anything you have to think it through very carefully,” he says.

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One of the first things the ANC did when it came to power in 1994 was abolish the death penalty and introduce a series of penal reforms. Today, the emphasis in South Africa’s jails is firmly on rehabilitation, with the prisoners being given the opportunity to participate in any number of self-improving “programmes”. I meet one man, for instance, who is taking a correspondence course in sociology. He is an ex-policeman convicted of murder and, as such, is housed in the isolation section with a cell to himself. Opposite his bunk is a little desk festooned with text books and, above that, a white plastic board covered in difficult words he has come across in the course of his studies with their definitions alongside them: plethora, acculturation, internecine. He has also written down various memorable phrases on little pieces of paper and stuck them to the walls. Above the door I spot the following quotation from Samuel Johnson: “The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.” For a man destined to spend 20 years in a room no bigger than a lavatory stall, the profundity of this observation must have struck him like a thunderbolt.

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Some of South Africa’s more right-wing MPs have complained that the regime in the country’s prisons is too soft and have likened Westville to a “five-star hotel”. This is a source of great merriment within the jail. “Welcome to the five-star hotel,” says Mr Englebrecht, one of the white prison officers, pointing out a large colony of rats undulating down the corridor. Before entering Westville I was sceptical about rehabilitation, convinced by the statistics that show just how common recidivism is. But having spent some time here, I’ve changed my mind. To deny prisoners the opportunity to get involved in some sort of rehabilitative activity, even if it doesn’t transform them into law-abiding citizens, would be needlessly cruel. In an environment in which people are humiliated every day -- they are often manacled when moving from one part of the prison to another -- the “programmes” offer them a chance to claw back some dignity. For instance, one prisoner tells me he helped set up a toy-making workshop whereby he and his fellow inmates make little wooden cars and trains for a nearby orphanage. Amazingly, they are allowed to leave the prison and hand over the toys to the orphans themselves, albeit heavily chained up. “That’s a great moment,” he says, eyes shining with emotion.

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Gangsterism is rife within Westville. The most powerful gang is the 26, which dates back to the colonial era, but there are a host of others. The 505, for instance, is a gang of prison informers, while Air Force 3 and Air Force 4 try and organise escapes. The one I find the most intriguing, however, is the 28 which specialises in sodomy. In order to join the 28 you have to stab a prison officer, which seems a rather high price to pay to join a homosexual fraternity. If you’re a gay man in Westville, why do you have to stab someone in order to come out? Can’t you just get involved in one of the many theatrical troupes? Imagine if the same rule applied on Old Compton Street. London would be an even more dangerous place than it already is.

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I return home on an overnight flight from Johanasberg and the moment I step through the door at 8am my wife deposits our newborn son in my arms. We have four children under five and Caroline has had such a nightmarish time while I’ve been away she says she would gladly have swapped places with me. Ordinarily, I would see her point, but after spending a week in prison I feel overwhelmed with happiness to see my family again. Ninety-five per cent of the inmates in Westville are black and most of them come from very poor backgrounds in the townships. Being surrounded by people who have so little really does make me feel extraordinarily privileged. I vow never to complain about my dull little life again.