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Kenya’s Prisons Service to get a clean-up in the New Consitution

Nairobi Prison, Kenya – Some prisons make their way onto the list of worst prisons not because of violence but because of the conditions that they house prisoners in year in and year out. Inmates here tend to be naked and infected with horrible diseases that kill them slowly. Overcrowding means that they don’t get the medical help they need and most die in agony

THE tainted Kenya Prisons Service will be changed should the harmonized draft constitution be adopted.

Instead, there shall exist the Kenya Correctional Service headed by a Director-General. Currently, a Commissioner of Prisons is in charge of the rehabilitation facilities.

Plotting mutiny and search for contrabands

Over the last two years, Kenya Prisons Service has captured negative headline news. Last year in March, warders staged a countrywide strike paralyzing the entire justice system for two days. They demanded better pay and working conditions.
The government responded by sacking nine senior prison officers it accused of plotting a mutiny. Early this year at the Kamiti Maximum Security Prison, Nairobi, warders were caught on camera bludgeoning innocuous inmates. The offenders were being punished after being found with various contrabands after a string search at the institution. Following the horrifying incident in which nude inmates were captured crying while be clobbered senselessly, the Commandant of the facility was transfered.

And last month, 18 inmates died after contracting cholera. Survivors of the pandemic complained of deplorable living conditions, inhumane treatment and endemic corruption they face routinely. Commissioner of Prisons Isaya Osugo, immediately ordered the transfer of the head of the kitchen department.

Promote accountability and prevent corruption

Such have been piecemeal changes and reactionary approach whenever a problem arises at the panel institutions across the country. However, the draft constitution is rooting for a more professional approach.

“The Kenya Correctional Service shall be structured and regulated so as to achieve the highest standards of professionalism and discipline among its members and by its members in the exercise of their powers,” states the document.

The Service shall be required to promote accountability and prevent corruption, observe human rights standards in the exercise of its powers and the performance of its functions; and train its members to the highest possible standards of competence and on minimal use of force and to have integrity and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms and human dignity.

Penal institutions are supposed to ensure the safety custody of the country’s prison population and the provision of humane living conditions in accordance with the constitution besides rehabilitation of offenders in order to facilitate their return to useful lives within society.

Nairobi Prison, Kenya, is ranked as the 10th worst prison in the world, behind Mendoza Prison, Argentina at 9th position. ADX Prison, Colorado, US is the worst prison in the world, according to The Prisons Blogspot – Luvei Times