Prisons still overcrowded despite new decongestion policy

Kenya's prisons are still congested despite the implementation of a new policy aimed at reducing the number of prisoners serving jail terms throughout the country, according to government sources. The new policy, known as the Community Service Orders Programme, had been launched in December 1999, and up to 120,000 offenders had served their sentences under the programme, which provided for their being allowed to carry out community service while living within their own communities, a prison spokesman, who declined to be named, told IRIN. "The main purpose of the scheme is to decongest the prisons. But it comes with conditions. The offender must be able to abide by conditions required," he said. "It is still a new concept. We hope to see more prisoners included." However, Ali Korane, the immediate former permanent secretary in the home affairs ministry, which governs the prisons, said on Monday that the prisons were still overcrowded. Korane, who has been transferred to another ministry, said at a handover ceremony for his successor that the prisons were currently holding 40,000 prisoners, although they only had a capacity to accommodate 14,000. For example, the remand prison in the capital, Nairobi, designed for 400, is holding 3,000 prisoners, according to Korane. "The department is congested," the East African Standard daily quoted him as saying. The state of the prisons is among the issues of concern among human rights groups in Kenya, which claim that prisoners often suffer torture, poor nutrition, inadequate health care, and a high vulnerability to HIV/AIDS infection.