Chief Justice David Maraga has raised concerns over the rising numbers of people being remanded in prisons for petty crimes.
Maraga on Monday said the number is alarming compared to those whose cases are successfully prosecuted.
He spoke during the launch of the Criminal Justice Committee at Supreme Court.
"There is a great need to urgently correct some of the embarrassing features within the justice system," he said.
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Maraga said for a long time, all the actors in the justice chain including judiciary, police, prosecution, probation and Children's department have had structural and systematic challenges that require urgent attention to streamline the sector.
He said the current legal framework does not address the needs of the young generation who find themselves in conflict with the law as they socialise and earn a living.
"We have established that 75 per cent of those sent to prison are aged between 18 -35 years. The majority are poor whose only offence is lack of business license or being found drunk and disorderly," Maraga said.
He said it is worth noting there is a high low rate of prosecution of serious offences.
"Only five percent of sexual offences have been determined with offences like organised crimes and capital offences recording the highest acquittals and withdrawals. This only means that freedom is being procured at the expense of justice," he said.
Maraga said more children are also being remanded in adult prisons instead of children remand homes with their cases taking abnormal long periods before they are resolved.
"We have in various prisons and we can attest the detention conditions are very inappropriate especially to people living with disabilities, pregnant and nursing mothers and the elderly. Most prisons are congested with prisoners being clamped together," he said.
He said: "We want to ask the government to put enough resources to overhaul the entire prison system. We cannot have people detained in such unfavourable conditions. We need modern prisons."
Maraga said with the committee in place, it will comprehensively review the whole criminal justice system and forward their recommendations before December 2018.
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