Public sends freed inmates trooping back to prisons

When Ms Teresa Njoroge walked out of the green steel gates of the Lang'ata Women’s Prison in February 2012 after completing a year behind bars for conspiring to defraud a bank she was working for, she could not wait to get back to her high flying banking career.

After all, her appeal for the sentence was on the right track (which she later won in 2013) and as a Bachelor of Commerce graduate from Pune University in India with the experience of having worked in three different banks, she thought it was going to be easy.

She was in for a rude shock. Even after being cleared of any wrong doing by the Court of Appeal, no bank still wanted to hire her.

“I applied to banks, put my case forward but no one still wanted me.

“It is like the day you go to prison you will be a prisoner for the whole of your life. When you leave those gates you enter a second prison. A prison where you can’t get a job, no one trusts you and you need to survive,” she explains.

Ms Njoroge’s tribulations reflect the agony those who have been to prison go through after being released. Unable to get a good start in life or secure a job - and at the same time being stigmatised by society for being criminals - a number of ex-convicts easily find themselves falling back to crime.

Within two days of President Uhuru Kenyatta’s mass pardoning of prisoners during the Mashujaa Day celebrations last month, two of those he released were already on the wrong side of the law.

The first one, Lucas Ngugi, 26, was caught stealing money from the offertory basket at Ol Jabet African Independent Pentecostal Church in Nyahururu.

The second one, George Kimani, was found with a stolen sheep hidden in his bedroom in Nyeri County.

PARDONED PRISONER

And last week another pardoned prisoner Vincent Komen was beaten to death by residents of Kiboino village in Baringo after he was allegedly caught

breaking into someone’s house. Baringo County Police Commandant Peter Ndung’u, condemned the killing, but added that crime in the area had increased following the presidential pardon.

Such incidents worry those released from prison with statistics indicating that a number of them easily fall back to crime. While the prison system exists to punish criminals, those released find themselves on their own.

David Macharia, the Assistant Commissioner General of Prisons, says their only job is to rehabilitate.

“Our role practically ends at the gate. “Our mandate is to deal with those within our custody. What is lacking is a comprehensive correction strategy to deal with those who have fallen in conflict with the law whether they are in prison or not.

“The reality is people think everyone who comes out of prison is a bad person. So even if you are transformed, you will still be viewed negatively and that stigma from society is what leads most ex-convicts to recidivism,” he says.

Jane* from Githurai who has asked us not to use her real name in order to protect her child whom she says already faces stigma at school for being the child of an ex-convict, no longer feels comfortable when she is around people.

“I had to hide at my sister’s house for three months because everywhere people were pointing fingers at me. Even right now when I introduce myself people immediately start guarding their purses,” she says.

Two years after being released from prison she has never been in any meaningful employment as she cannot get a Certificate of Good Conduct from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations.

LEAD CLEAN LIVES

“I don’t understand why they make us go through all that because after finishing your time in prison you owe the government nothing.  How do they expect us to lead clean lives if just getting clearance from the police is hell,” she complains.

Also known as a police clearance certificate, its purpose is to verify that an individual has not been involved in crime for the past six months and has not served jail time. Most companies including the government have made it a mandatory requirement for those seeking jobs.

Occasionally directors of a companies placing tenders for the supply of goods and services are asked to produce one meaning it is very difficult to get meaningful employment or do business without that certificate.

It is situation that is worrying even the Prison’s Department itself since it trains all its prisoners on various income generating activities while giving them skills to help them lead a meaningful life outside.

“Yes, they have committed crimes against society but if we continue to condemn them then it means we are condemning them back to prison,” observes Mary Khaemba, the director of offender correction and rehabilitation for Kenya Prisons.

“We may give you skills but if you can’t use them after leaving prison then it is a wasted effort,” she says.

According to Ms Khaemba, Kenya’s 102 prisons combined release at least 500 prisoners who have finished their sentences on a daily basis. Out of these, she says 10 per cent come back to jail as repeat offenders.

A study published in August in the Journal of Law, Policy and Globalisation found that 15 per cent of the inmates in Kakamega and Shikusa prisons were in jail for the fourth time.

“Out of these, 34 per cent of the recidivists committed their first offences which were juvenile-related offences when they were below the age of 18 years followed by drug- related offences at 26 per cent, crimes against persons at 12 per cent, crimes against property at 10 per cent while the lowest was robbery at 2.1 per cent,” it said.

SERVE LONGER SENTENCES

The study, which was done by Evans Oruta of the Department of Criminology, Kibabii University, also noted that the trend of offences committed by the recidivists changed according to the number of times someone was arrested.

“The longer the duration spent in prison, the worse the re-entry experience since those inmates who serve longer sentences suffer the greatest re-entry experiences occasioned by disintegrated families, inability to easily secure employment after release, and high chances of reoffending,” it said.

Data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics shows that the total prison population stood at 221,974 by the end of last year. Out of these 88,115 are convicted prisoners while 133,272 are remanded. This is against the official capacity of 26,000 representing an over congestion rate of 853 per cent.

To deal with this problem, the Office of the President on the advice of the Power of Mercy Committee ceremoniously pardons prisoners on a yearly basis especially during public holidays.

Most of those released are the ones remaining with six months to finish their terms, petty offenders, terminally ill inmates and those identified by the Power of Mercy Committee as being qualified for release.

The President, however, has the power to pardon prisoners directly like he did during Mashujaa Day by pardoning 7,427 petty offenders, a gesture Mr Uhuru Kenyatta said was meant to create space for those engaging in corruption.

When this happens, it disrupts the normal release procedures that are supposed to aid prisoners who have finished their sentences a smooth transition to the free world. 

Under normal circumstances, the releasing a prisoner begins three months before sentence completion but those released by Presidential pardon know about it on the very day the decision is made.

However, during a normal release a discharge board is formed to ascertain the needs of the prisoner and to figure out if they are ready to join the free world.

The board comprises the officer-in-charge of the prison, the inmates serving their sentence, the welfare officer, a religious representative, the chief of the locality the prisoner hails from and interested non-profit organisations like Clean Start started by Ms Njoroge to aid ex-convicts to get an better start to life