Rethink Kenya’s juvenile justice system to tame illegal acts

Kenya is currently at crossroads with regard to unprecedented incidents of arson attacks in schools. A number of schools have been torched in what seems to follow near similar patterns. While some juveniles involved in these acts have been arraigned in courts, the Constitution and relevant laws do not provide for punishment but rehabilitation of such children since they cannot be convicted.

In retrospect, traditional structures were organised in a way that facilitated communal “ownership“ and supervision of the delinquent child. This was not confined to the nuclear family; it was a task undertaken by the community. The colonial period disrupted this setup. While traditional child rearing practices were for the common good and practised in the community, with elders providing oral learning, the English juvenile justice was more institutional, discriminatory and combined welfare service with punishment. Deprived children were lumped together with delinquents. It was administered through regimented structures backed by an alien legal mandate. These were epitomised in what is currently known as rehabilitation schools, borstal schools and youth corrective training centres. Children taken in were collectively deemed as vagabonds, truants, beggars and petty pilferers and such acts were perceived as “transgression“ deserving incarceration as a protective measure for the “white settler“ with least consideration of the interest of the “errant“ child.