Without after prison-care plan, crime levels may never reduce : The Standard

Reflect for a moment what it would be like to be released from prison with no money to a community that is frightened of you having served a 20-year sentence. I was shocked that we don’t have more of half-way homes for the thousands that leave our prisons each month. A quick review of prison data exposes our criminal justice system to be a large revolving door. The police and county askaris arrest two million people every year. Two thirds are arrested for petty offences such as being drunk and disorderly, unlicensed trading, sex for payment, fighting, petty theft and fraud. Most are under the age of 30 and 85 per cent do not receive legal representation. The Prisons Service processes 54,000 inmates crammed into 118 prisons with a capacity of 30,000. Forty-eight per cent of them are pre-trial detainees awaiting their chance to prove their innocence. Some of them wait up-to four years to do this. Each month, 3,000 prisoners and pre-trial detainees are released back into the society after serving their time or proving their innocence. It is as this point the criminal justice system reveals its greatest cracks. The government has no after-care policy or programmes. The business sector has no affirmative employment or training programmes and there are less than five half-way centres across the country. Imagine this, 3,000 ex-prisoners re-enter the society every month and we have no post-prison strategy to prevent them from re-committing the crimes that took them there in the first place. Given the relative youthfulness of prisoners, the absence of a system that re-integrates them into the society is especially dysfunctional. Most return with no savings, qualifications, business opportunities or networks. Their families and friends will have given up on them and there are few places of refuge and support. Caught between being ill-prepared to navigate a challenging economy and ostracised by the society, released citizens have a 75 per cent chance of committing another crime and a 50 per cent chance of returning to prison two years after release.

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Even if they do not return to crime, the chances of substance abuse, poverty, mental health issues and being killed by criminal gangs are high. Visiting the halfway home run by former inmate Humphrey Wainaina and the Ex-Prisoners Welfare Organisation last weekend was an eye-opener. Established in 2014, it assists former inmates adjust to public life after long periods of incarceration in prisons such as Kamiti, Shimo la Tewa and Machakos. The home has a carpentry and welding workshop and a salon where former inmates can work to earn a living. Where it can, it offers inmates temporary housing and Sh7,000 to enable them to travel back to their communities. The home relies primarily on public hand-outs and financial contributions. Initiatives like Wainaina’s are preciously few and include other halfway homes like Philemon Trust Halfway House. Founded and directed by former death row prisoner Pete Ouko, CrimeSiPoa also runs anti-crime youth awareness programmes, skills-training for former inmates and public awareness campaigns to reduce the fear of prisoners. These and other initiatives are an essential addition to our criminal justice system. Without them, Kenya has no post-prison intermediaries or strategies for our prisons officers, ex-prisoners and the public. The question nevertheless remains, why is this area so unfunded and ignored by our policy-makers, business and non-profit sectors? Given that the impact of crime and violence is felt most in the counties, why have our county governments not set aside a budget-line for half-way homes? Perhaps the Ministry and Prisons Service could revisit the Prison After-Care policy guidelines drafted decades ago and encourage citizens to support their efforts? It has been four years since the United Nations adopted the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners. Nicknamed the Nelson Mandela Rules after one of the world’s most famous prisoners, the 120 guidelines create international standards for humane prison conditions and prisoner rights. They also create a framework for seeing prisons and prisoners as a continuous part of the society. With them, we could look again at how we could nationally re-introduce prisoners into our society and create ethical, active and caring citizens. It is merely wishful thinking that one day, our crime levels will significantly reduce.
 
- The writer is Amnesty International Executive Director. He writes in his personal capacity.

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