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Penal reforms plan a welcome move

Penal reforms plan a welcome move
Kenya Prisons officers inspect a guard of honour at Makueni main prison in February 7, 2024. PHOTO/PrisonsKe/X

Revelations by Correctional Services Principal Secretary Solomon Beacco that the government will embark on a second round of penal reforms aimed at turning prisons into rehabilitation rather than punishment centres are quite refreshing.

According to Beacco’s proposal, inmates would get specific training that would then earn them a living while they serve their sentences so that they can support their families.

This is an acknowledgement that prisoners are human beings who need to be rehabilitated and thereafter reintegrated back into society. They are not social rejects bereft of any claim to the human right to love and the desire for acceptance back in their communities.

Since Moody Awori, the former vice president and minister for Home Affairs, left government more than 10 years ago, the gains made through the reforms he initiated during his tenure have relapsed. Managers of prisons are more concerned with revenge and the disproved notion that longer sentences, more brutal conditions and capital punishment reduce crime rate.

Even then, Kenya persists in imposing them, only serving to increase the chances of an offender relapsing into criminal behaviour. Any meaningful steps to undertake actual rehabilitation is seen by the authorities as being soft.

In other words, Kenya’s penal system is not about reducing crime or enabling rehabilitation, but about revenge and hardening the criminal, which is counterproductive.

Kenya witnessed the first-ever reforms in the prisons system during Awori’s tenure. Inmates got some form of dignity and were allowed to sleep on mattresses, access clean and decent clothes and enjoy more visits from relatives. Previously, inmates were forced to sleep on cold floors with no coverings.

Cases of torture, murder and subjecting inmates to hunger and other forms of extreme punishment are more popular in Kenyan prisons today than ever before. And even the food itself is not fit for human consumption.

Kenya’s police cells can easily pass for torture rooms in a horror movie. No beds. No sheets. Just a few torn blankets. The smell of sweat, urine and human waste compete for your nostrils. The proposed reforms should address these conditions.

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