Majority of prisoners on death row thought their punishment would be a fine, a report by Kenya National Commission on Human Rights shows.
The report, 'Living with a Death Sentence: Prisoners' Experiences of Crime, Punishment and Death Row" was launched on Tuesday at a hotel in Nairobi.
It said most inmates never imagined they would be handed the death sentence if convicted.
The report said only four per cent of robbery with violence inmates knew their punishment would be the death sentence before committing the offence.
It added that only eight per cent of murder convicts new the punishment would the death sentence.
Majority of robbery with violence (69 per cent) and murder convicts (48 per cent) believed the penalty would be a prison term at worse.
“Perhaps most interesting is that 13 per cent of those who went on to commit a murder did not think about the possible punishment before committing the crime. This probably speaks to their mental state prior to the offence,” the report added.
When they were making the decision to commit the crime, the vast majority (85 per cent) of inmates thought it was ‘unlikely’ or ‘very unlikely’ they would be arrested, the study showed.
“Similarly, 89 per cent thought it was ‘unlikely’ or ‘very unlikely’ that they would be convicted, with only one per cent thinking this was a ‘very likely’ outcome,” the report added.
It said those who were contemplating murder were a little more aware, but still only relatively few were cognisant of the risk of being sentenced to death.
KNCHR compiled the report following a study commissioned by University of Oxford Death Penalty Research Unit.
The study sampled 671 prisoners across 12 Kenyan prisons, which included not only those currently under sentence of death, but also those previously sentenced to death who later had their sentence commuted.
