Heed Judiciary's call to reform our jail system

Reforms initiated by former vice president Moody Awori in the Prisons Department appear to have floundered after he left office. At the time, the VP introduced measures that accorded inmates some dignity. For the first time, prisoners enjoyed watching television and sleeping on mattresses, a reversal from the punitive, dehumanising custom of sleeping on the hard, cold floor, often without blankets.

Ideally, prisons are corrective institutions, but they appear to have failed to achieve their purpose. They mistreat prisoners and, therefore, cause some of them to come out more hardened after serving their terms.

Kenyan prisons currently hold 51,829 convicts, yet their capacity is estimated to be only 27,000. No doubt the advent of infectious diseases in such confined spaces is on the increase.

Chief Justice David Maraga took note of this at the launch of the National Committee on Criminal Justice Reforms at the Supreme Court in Nairobi recently and called for an overhaul of the entire prison system. A large number of the convicts swelling the numbers in prisons should be allowed to serve non-custodial sentences.

It makes no sense to have, say, a serial murderer, a rapist, a person convicted of being drunk and disorderly, and an individual who forgot to renew his car insurance serving time in the same cell. Putting expectant women, the terminally ill, the elderly, and children in cells undermines some of their basic human rights. Some of the offences for which people serve jail terms can be atoned for by the payment of fines.