- They can be handled through means such as community service, which is not costly.
- Petty offences classified in the penal code during the colonial era to keep Africans in check.
James Mbote and his three friends were arrested at 9pm last month while walking home after watching a football match at a local pub.
The four were apprehended by police officers on patrol at Imara Daima. It was a Friday.
“The officers said we were loitering with intent to cause disturbance and that we were supposed to be in our houses at the time,” the taxi driver told the Star.
“My friends were drunk but I was not, but we spent the weekend in the cold cells. I had to say that I was drunk to be allowed out on a fine of Sh500. If I denied, I would take ages fighting to be free.”
The petty offences include touting, loitering with intent to commit an offence, creating a public disturbance, urinating in public, scuffling, walking without a national ID, prostituting, hawking in restricted areas, having marijuana, drinking in public and walking drunk.
Human rights activists now want petty offences, such as this one for which Mbote was rounded up, declassified to ease congestion in the criminal justice system.
The activists argue that petty offenders crowd the system, eating into time and resources that could otherwise be focused on serious crimes.
The petty offences include touting, loitering with intent to commit an offence, creating a public disturbance, urinating in public, scuffling, walking without a national ID, prostituting, hawking in restricted areas, having marijuana, drinking in public and walking drunk.
Police Reform Working Group last month suggested to the new Inspector General of Police to have the offences declassified as part of his agenda in his first 100 days in office.
The lobby is made up of Amnesty International, Independent Medico-Lego Unit, Transparency International and International Justice Mission, among others.
The group explained that petty offences can be handled through means such as community service, which would not consume the time and resources of the justice system.
Demas Kiprono, campaign manager at Transparency International, told the Star that most of the petty offences have no bearing on national security and were classified in the penal code during the colonial era to keep Africans in check.
A 2015 criminal justice audit report by the National Council on Administration of Justice and the Legal Resource Foundation showed that 75 per cent of “of all prison inmates were young poor people charged with petty offences and state-regulated offences.”
Kiprono said some of the offences create an avenue for corruption and wastage.
“So that, instead of police officers following leads regarding tracing, arresting, prosecuting or convicting terrorists, robbers, defilers, human and drug traffickers, poachers and rapists - they are preoccupied with arresting, processing and prosecuting drunkards, weed smokers, public urinators, loiterers, vagabonds, hawkers and prostitutes. The same applies to waste of judicial, prosecutorial and correctional time and resources,” the human rights lawyer said in an article in the Star in March.
The report indicated that most petty offence arrests, especially drunk and disorderly, would consistently increase on Thursdays and peak on Fridays.
Most of these offenders would be released by Saturday without any reason and with no further police action.
The push, seen in the civil society as a move that would free up time and resources in the judicial and prisons departments, comes in the wake of the recently released economic survey, which showed the prison population is on a steady rise.
The prison population increased from 208,168 in 2017 to 223,718 in 2018, the 2019 economic survey report shows. More importantly, the report shows that the unconvicted prison population increased by 9.4 per cent to 139,822 in 2018.
The number of prisoners per 100,000 population grew from 446.8 in 2017 to 467.6 in 2018.