Government · Contact details
Department of Correctional Services Contact Details
The Department of Correctional Services email address is enquiry.complaints@dcs.gov.za and its Tshegetso call centre is 0860 000 327, open 07:15 to 15:45. National head office is 012 307 2998 or 012 307 2999. Individual correctional centres have their own numbers, listed below. We read this on dcs.gov.za on 24 September 2026.
National contacts
| Tshegetso call centre | 0860 000 327 |
| enquiry.complaints@dcs.gov.za | |
| Call centre hours | 07:15 to 15:45 |
| National head office | 012 307 2998 or 012 307 2999 |
The Tshegetso call centre sits at national head office and has run since September 2019. It is the general route for enquiries and complaints, and the mailbox name says what it is for.
Note the early hours. It opens at 07:15 and closes at 15:45, so it shuts before most offices do. A call at 16:00 will not be answered.
Pretoria is now Kgosi Mampuru II
Worth knowing before you search, because the name on the signage and the name in the directory differ.
The Pretoria prison complex is administered as the Kgosi Mampuru II Management Area. The individual centres inside it are still listed under their Pretoria names.
| Centre | Telephone | Fax |
|---|---|---|
| Kgosi Mampuru II Management Area | 012 314 1800 or 012 314 1801 | 012 323 4441 or 012 328 7031 |
| Pretoria Central Correctional Centre | 012 314 1905 | 012 323 4441 |
| Pretoria Local Correctional Centre | 012 314 1904 | 012 323 2022 |
| Pretoria Female Correctional Centre | 012 314 1782 | 012 323 1523 |
Pretoria Central and Pretoria Female are both in Potgieter Street, Pretoria. All of them post to Private Bag X45, Pretoria.
Zonderwater, Cullinan
| Office | Telephone | Fax |
|---|---|---|
| Zonderwater Management Area | 012 734 1058 | 012 734 1626 |
| Zonderwater Medium A | 012 305 7177 | 012 734 0257 |
| Zonderwater Medium B | 012 305 7110 | 012 734 2559 |
Zonderwater is at the Zonderwater Training College, Cullinan, and posts to Private Bag X1003, Cullinan, 1000. It is outside Pretoria, so allow travel time.
The management area number and the two centre numbers sit on different exchanges, 012 734 and 012 305. Both are correct as published.
Johannesburg
| Office | Telephone | Fax |
|---|---|---|
| Johannesburg Management Area | 011 933 7008 | 011 942 4904 |
| Johannesburg Medium A | 011 933 7154 | 011 941 1085 |
| Johannesburg Medium B | 011 933 7113 | 011 933 7114 |
| Johannesburg Medium C | 011 933 7063 | 011 933 7064 |
| Johannesburg Community Corrections | 011 376 8803 | 011 376 8820 |
All of these are at 9 Main Street, Meredale, and post to Private Bag X04, Mondeor, 2110. This is the complex commonly called Sun City.
Community Corrections is the one to note. It handles parole and supervision in the community rather than people in custody, and it is on a different exchange from the rest.
Mthatha, and an old name
Searching the directory for Mthatha will not find the centre itself, which is why this is worth spelling out.
The Mthatha Management Area exists under that name, but the correctional centre in the town is still listed under the pre-1994 name: Umtata Medium Correctional Centre, on 047 532 6222, fax 047 531 4079.
The Mthatha Management Area also covers centres at Bizana, Mount Frere, Lusikisiki, Mount Ayliff, Mount Fletcher, Mqanduli, Ngqeleni, Flagstaff and Tabankulu.
Faults in the official directory
The department’s own centre directory has several problems, and knowing them stops you assuming you have copied something down wrongly.
Some centres have no dialable number at all. Several Eastern Cape entries carry the word “ASK” where the number should be, as in “047312 ASK 4”. That is old manual-exchange notation meaning ask the operator to connect you, and it cannot be dialled today. Mqanduli, Ngqeleni, Flagstaff and Tabankulu are all listed this way.
The postal code column is broken. Eastern Cape entries show a postal code of “0” and the Pretoria centres show “1”. Those are not real codes. Use the private bag and town, which are correct.
Several cellphone entries are also truncated to a handful of digits.
One further thing: the directory names the head of each centre and publishes Area Commissioners’ personal cellphone numbers. We do not republish those. Ask for the Head of the Centre or the Area Commissioner by title on the switchboard numbers above.
If a centre number does not work, use the Tshegetso call centre on 0860 000 327, which can route you.
Visiting someone
DCS publishes a set of pages specifically for this: Book Visit, Find a Centre, Visitation Process and Parcels Allowed, alongside pages on supervision and parole boards.
Read Parcels Allowed before travelling. What may be brought in is tightly controlled, and arriving with something prohibited wastes the trip.
Sources
- Department of Correctional Services Find a Centre directory on dcs.gov.za, for every correctional centre telephone number, fax number, street and postal address quoted above, and for the directory faults described (read 24 September 2026)
- DCS Regions page, for the management area numbers for Kgosi Mampuru II, Zonderwater and Johannesburg (read 24 September 2026)
- DCS Tshegetso call centre page and site footer, for the call centre number, the enquiries and complaints email address, the operating hours and the national head office numbers (read 24 September 2026)