Pollsmoor Prison, officially, Pollsmoor Maximum Security Prison is a prison in the Cape Town

Cape Town

Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...

 suburb of Tokai

Tokai, Cape Town

Tokai, a large residential suburb of Cape Town, South Africa, is situated on the foothills of the Constantiaberg, and is bordered by, Steenberg and Kirstenhof to the South, Bergvliet to the East, Constantia to the North and the SAFCOL pine tree plantations against the mountain to the...

 in South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

. Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing...

 was the most famous inmate of the prison. He describes Pollsmoor Prison as "the truth of Oscar Wilde's haunting line about the tent of blue that prisoners call the sky."

Pollsmoor is a maximum security prison with little means in the way of escape. Some of South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

's most dangerous criminals and roughest gangsters are held in Pollsmoor Prison.