War on drugs, illicit brews has filled prisons, says PS

The government has commenced the process of decongesting prisons in a bid to reduce cases of overcrowding in correction facilities.

Correctional Services Principal Secretary Dr Salome Beacco said the enhanced war on narcotics and substance abuse in Kenya has resulted in the increase of inmates who are arrested, thereby leading to overcrowding in prisons.

The government is very emphatic that we should reduce alcoholism. The operations of doing this has resulted in us having a new number of new inmates.

Whereas we are trying to reduce these numbers, until we completely resolve the issue of alcoholism, it is anticipated that the numbers will increase," she said.

In the long term, however, the government aims at imparting behavioural change in Kenyans through community outreach programmes promoting good morals and effectively reducing the numbers of people being taken to prisons.

Beacco said the 134 correctional facilities in the country were currently housing some 64,000 inmates, against the official carrying capacity of 34,000.

Development partners She was speaking in Nairobi after a meeting with the development partners in the reform sector where she also revealed that the process of reducing the number of inmates began on Tuesday at Tambach Prison, Elgeyo Marakwet county.

The target for this reduction of inmates include petty offenders and persons sentenced to less than three years who the State says will now be doing community services at the counties under the supervision of the county governments.

These petty offences include littering, jaywalking, and petty theft. This process is being done collaboratively with county governments, the judiciary, and the state department of Correctional Services, according to the PS.

Decongest prisons

"In Tambach, we decongested the prison and offload those persons to serve community service orders in the county government and we hope to roll this operation throughout the country so that we continuously decongest the prisons particularly the petty offenders and those serving less than three years," PS Beacco said.

The State Department is also drafting the Kenya National Correctional Service Draft Bill as well as the Correctional Service Policy Framework. The two are to be presented to the Interior Cabinet Secretary, Kithure Kindiki in September this year.

This is after the Maraga-led police reforms taskforce recommended several issues, including the review and consolidation of existing laws guiding the affairs of correctional services in the country, the welfare of prison staff, and improved standards of prison infrastructure, be executed swiftly.

"Despite the 2010 constitution being a very progressive document, we still lack substantive legal instruments to guide the correctional services department that was created by the new constitution.

"Most of the legal provisions are ancient and obsolete and do not speak to the needs of Kenyans," she said. The department has launched an agenda aimed at improving the inmates living conditions across prisons countrywide.