The government Plans to decongest prisons with a view to improving the living conditions of inmates, the State Department for Correctional Services Principal Secretary (PS), Salome Wairimu, has said.
To achieve this, the PS said, one of the approaches the Administration had employed was to work hand in hand with the judiciary to upscale the issuance of Probation Orders and Community Service Orders.
“It is our desire that inmates, especially petty offenders, instead of serving sentences in prison, go and do community service or serve probation terms,” she said.
Ms. Wairimu said currently there are over 62, 000 inmates in the country, out of which about 25, 000 are petty criminals who could be placed under Non-Custodial Sentences to reduce congestion.
Speaking Thursday at the Embu GK Prisons during a familiarisation tour in the company of, among others, the Commissioner General of Prisons, Brigadier John Kibaso, the PS said they were working closely with the Office of Chief Justice through the National Commission on Administration of Justice to achieve this.
PS Wairimu said The State Department is also scaling up the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) mechanism to see to it that disputes, especially family or land-related disputes, are arbitrated and resolved locally.
“On the issue of ADR, we are working with the National Government Administration Officers and other stakeholders, to see to it that family disputes can be resolved outside the court system,” she said.
She encouraged the community to accept back the offenders who they are trying to rehabilitate in the non-custodial programme so that they can be reintegrated into society and become productive.
“We are moving away from imprisonment and punishment of inmates to a programme of reformation and rehabilitation, and we ask members of society to give them the benefit of the doubt and a second chance,” the PS said.
She also urged those wishing to be set free under Presidential pardon, commonly known as the Power of Mercy, to make a relevant application for consideration.
The PS also said the Department had received a request from some inmates who wanted to be enrolled in a virtual university programme, saying they were working with the Ministries of ICT and Education, to work out the modalities.
At the same time, the PS reported that inmates’ visitation had resumed following suspension in 2020, as a result of the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We have now reviewed that and have allowed them to have their loved ones visit them, but within the set limits,” she said.
By Samuel Waititu
