It once happened that an Ear of Corn, which lay under the heavy blows of a Thresher’s flail, thus expressed its sense of the unaccountable hard treatment:
“How have I deserved this severe persecution? Do I not appear before you in the simple covering with which Nature has endowed me; and although mankind freely acknowledges me as their greatest blessing, you treat me as if I had been their curse.”
“Fool that thou art!” replied the Thresher, when he heard the complaint; “know that by this very treatment your value and your power of blessing is infinitely increased, and that by it you are divested and freed from a worthless excrescence, and are made more pure.”
Nelson Mandela once said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged based on how it treats its highest citizens, but it’s lowest ones.
His words resonated with the fable above, which basically teaches that punishments inflicted with discretion, and by the hands of wisdom and justice, become wholesome correction.
Last week, there was a lot of activity in prisons, with the escape of three convicts, their subsequent capture and the change of guard of the prisons’bosses.
Firstly, let me congratulate our security services that apprehended the convicts within a short time. They worked diligently to ensure that the three convicts did not end up in Somalia where they were probably seeking to link up with al Shabaab recruiters.
As we focus on elevating security in Kamiti and other prisons, a robust discussion must start on how to improve the condition of our prisons. Our prisons have been seen as punishment centres instead of rehabilitation of criminal elements in society.
In fact, some prisoners come out of prisons and become worse than they were before they were jailed. Prisons have also become recruitment centres for criminals who turn minor offenders into hardcore criminals ahead of their release.
Prison systems must be about rehabilitation, not simply jailing and punishing people. Inmates must be treated humanely. Putting very many convicts together in bad conditions, then releasing them without rehabilitation is a recipe for chaos.
Some 20 years ago, Norway decided to move away from a punitive approach for its prisons and what followed was reports of a sharp drop in reoffending rates. The reforms were more than just nice cells and food but included how prison officers were trained to handle the inmates.
Many European countries have taken the same approach, which has seen criminals leave prisons reformed and ready to reintegrate into society. Some pick new skills while others use the opportunity to further their education, which helps them work well outside the prison walls.
The United Nations has often insisted that prison reform is a human rights issue. While imprisonment deprives the prisoner the right to liberty, it does not mean that they should not enjoy other rights such as proper accommodation, adequate health facilities, food and general mental well-being.
There are standards and norms that have been drawn up through the UN system that Kenya should strive to adopt now that we are having this conversation about reforming our prisons.
Kenya may need to explore areas of conjugal rights, continuous education, training soft and hard skills and even tracked house arrest to decongest prisons. The government should also consider looking into the conditions in which inmates live and operate as this also affects their mental state in and out of prison.
Inside the prisons, there is need to separate hardcore criminals from others to stem out possible recruitment. In addition, terrorism convicts should be jailed separately as happens in the US to avoid creating new terror cells within prisons.
Reforming prisons feeds into our overall security system and it is therefore a critical venture that must be addressed urgently and effectively. The Interior CS should create a permanent task force that will see the implementation of prison reforms as has been discussed for years.
