Prison reforms: Government's plan to turn jails into industries
Prison warders at the Kenya Prisons head offices in Nairobi.
The Kenya Prison Service (KPS) is set for an extreme makeover with the revival of prison industries, social protection and farms at the centre of ongoing reforms to benefit inmates as the government recoups its investment.
This comes as Correctional Services Principal Secretary Salome Beacco, without revealing the financial implications, said that the government has already unveiled eight key priority areas to ensure inmates become productive when they are reintegrated into society.
The reforms cover administrative, legal and policy framework support, education and training coordination, institutional infrastructure and operational capacity, housing, and environment and climate change mitigation.
According to the PS, the reforms will ensure that inmates benefit from vocational and agricultural training, resulting in the comprehensive rehabilitation and reformation of offenders.
“We want to prove that our correctional facilities are not just places of confinement, but also avenues for rehabilitation and personal development,” said Dr Beacco, an advocate of the High Court.
She noted that the reforms are in line with Kenya Kwanza’s Bottom-up Economic Transformation Agenda (Beta).
With the government facing budgetary constraints in all sectors, the prison reforms will improve standards and ensure self-sufficiency while increasing capacity and competitiveness.
Kenya has 135 prisons spread across the country, including six women's prisons and three juvenile prisons, with over 63,000 inmates, placing a heavy burden on the government to provide for them with limited resources.
The country also has 142 probation units.
“The farming programmes are designed to support food production. It is a case of good organisation to produce more and do things better for the country,” added Dr Beacco.
To date, 8,500 inmates have been trained in various trades, with 25 boys and 5 girls completing their training.
Another 56 boys are waiting to sit their trade exams in December 2024.
“This is a testament that our correctional facilities are more than just places of confinement, but also avenues for rehabilitation and personal development,” said the PS.
KPS has also initiated programmes for potato production in Nyandarua, maize milling at the Naivasha prison, Rice milling in Mwea as well as the establishment of orchards in Kamiti, Ngeria, Nakuru Main Prison, Makueni and Maranjau prisons.
To align with the government's digital payment platform (e-citizen), the PS announced that the Prisons Enterprise has merged all 210 paybills into one government paybill 222222 for all revenue collection, with all payments now cashless through eCitizen, EFT and company cheques.
The government is currently building bakeries in prisons in Kisumu, Mombasa, Meru, Nyeri and Eldoret.
Prison reforms in Kenya have adopted a rights-based approach to rehabilitation programmes.
This has led to government involvement in supporting training for prison officers, improved medical care and dietary changes, clothing and bedding, improved transport and remote parenting.
Kenyan prisoners used to earn a stipend, but this has been stopped.
“When the population increases, the number of offenders also increases. All of us can be guests of the state,” the PS says.
Known for producing quality furniture, KPS has also been involved in multi-billion shilling works, such as the 2012 renovation of the National Assembly and Senate debating chambers, which involved the manufacture and installation of members' seats at a cost of about Sh400,000 each.
Kamiti Maximum Prison has the largest prison furniture industry in the country.
The department is currently renovating the headquarters of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI).
In reforming the prison service, the government aims to decongest prisons by embracing community corrections and alternative dispute resolution, and to improve the welfare of offenders.
Prisoners, according to the PS, will be involved in the construction of 28,000 housing units under the government's affordable housing programme.
They will also be involved in planting 100 million trees a year in correctional facilities across the country as the government seeks to improve the country's forest cover to at least 12 percent, as required by the United Nations (UN). Kenya has less than 10 percent forest cover.
As part of the administrative, legal and policy framework support, the government intends to acquire title deeds to all "our lands" and to review and consolidate into one piece of legislation the Prisons Act, the Borstal Institutions Act, the Probation of Offenders Act and the Community Service Orders Act.
The review will also include the Prison Service Standing Orders, Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and Guidelines.
“A team of experts, who will also address the stipend issues for the prisoners, has already been formed and gazetted to work on this area and advise my State Department accordingly via a report,” says Dr Beacco.
The revitalisation of prison farms involves increasing productivity by increasing the area under crop and livestock production, using the labour provided by the inmates.
To modernise the prison industry, the government plans to increase the production of manufactured goods, for example by revamping the leather industry at Kitengela and Kamiti prisons, thereby increasing income.
The government is also developing an integrated offender records and case management system, procuring various ICT equipment and infrastructure, establishing e-courts in the 135 correctional facilities, and automating the existing rehabilitation programmes and vocational training offered to offenders.
KPS will produce tree seedlings, including indigenous and fruit trees, create and expand existing orchards, landscape and beautify correctional facilities throughout the country, and upgrade kitchens with LPG gas and biogas systems to reduce wood fuel consumption.
