Prisons' infrastructure is still 'colonial' despite talk of reforms

Kamiti Maximum Prison's entrance.[FILE]

"Hail jail! The house for all. The only house where a government minister and a pickpocket dine together, work together and discuss matters on equal terms."

This powerful opening punch is by the late Mwangi Gicheru's in his classic, Across the Bridge. Nelson Mandela had blown his wisdom on these words when after his 27-year-old painful incarceration at the Robben Island famously concluded that a nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.