The Judiciary has unveiled an initiative to address the severe overcrowding in prisons facilities countrywide.
Chief Justice Martha Koome while launching the decongestion initiative at the Nairobi Remand and Allocation Maximum Security Prison in Industrial Area said this will help ease strains on resources in the prison system which undermines the rehabilitation of offenders.
Koome said the Judiciary will adopt Community Service Orders (CSOs) to replace incarceration for eligible convicts.
Some 376 out of 4,000 offenders at Industrial Area Prison in Nairobi are set to be released in the first phase of a decongestion initiative launched by Chief Justice Martha Koome.
In the first phase, the initiative will focus on re-evaluating bail and bond terms for individuals who have not yet been convicted but are currently held in remand.
The second phase of the initiative will involve an ongoing review of sentences by High Court judges to achieve a sustainable prison population with Nairobi’s prisons housing 9,458 inmates, with nearly half being un-convicted individuals.
With some prison facilities operating at double their intended capacity, worsening the overcrowding crisis, the initiative proposes enhancing plea-bargaining to speed up trials, diverting children to rehabilitative programs, and offering community service for petty offenders instead of short prison sentences.
Even though the government is implementing measures to reduce prison overcrowding, the facilities still house approximately 62,000 inmates, far exceeding their capacity of 30,000.
