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{
    "id": 500513,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/500513/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 407,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Iringo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1574,
        "legal_name": "Cyprian Kubai Iringo",
        "slug": "cyprian-kubai-iringo"
    },
    "content": "the living conditions there are worse than in places where animals live. Given that we have so many offenders, and the prison facilities are not increasing, we should have a law to ensure that petty offenders are not held in prison. They should be given time to go home and report to probation officials, so that we can decongest our correctional centres. I visited a prison in my constituency one day. I was shocked when I saw the food that the prisoners were eating. When the maize flour was put in boiling water, it stayed there for only two minutes and they were told to serve the food. I asked the prison warder who was supervising the cooks: “Are they going to eat this meal?” He replied: “This food is ready for them”. I asked him: “If you were asked to eat that food, would you eat it?” He replied: “I am not a prisoner”. According to the way he answered me, a prisoner is not a human being. As the Leader of Majority Party mentioned, when you are suspected of having committed an offence in this country, you are handled so inhumanly that you find yourself out of place. The enforcement officers behave as if they want to humiliate you, especially if you are a person of integrity, an officer, a Member of Parliament or somebody whose social status is above average. Once a police officer gets hold of you, he tries to “enjoy” you the way a cat “enjoys” a mouse to prove that he is more important. Instead of going by the law, they behave as if they have gotten a kill and take it that it was time to embarrass or humiliate the individual. This law will help in correcting these anomalies. It will assist in addressing the problem of people being deprived of their rights, so that as one waits for his case to be heard, one can be treated like a human being. Even those who have been condemned to death, or are serving long jail terms, they are also human beings, as long as they are alive and kicking. Therefore, their rights should be respected. We have instances where mothers are confined and, unfortunately, they have got little children. Even the children are treated as though they are prisoners. There should be proper areas where to hold such children as their parents serve their prison terms. You find that when prisoners go to dig in the farms, kids are on their backs. As a prisoner does manual work, she is molested. That is inhuman because that other human being did not commit any wrong. Young citizens need the protection of the State to enjoy their rights. The Bill has taken into account the fact that disabled people have a right to dignified treatment despite their weaknesses arising from their disabilities and irrespective of the offences that they may have committed. In Kenya, we say that one is presumed to be innocent until proved guilty. However, if you are arrested, it looks like you are guilty from the moment a police officer gets hold of you. So, enforcement officers should not be taking the law into their hands. They should act as per the law. This Bill is correcting that anomaly. It is putting things right. It is high time we enacted this Bill into law for the purpose of bringing sanity in our correctional centres, and amongst those who deal with people deprived of their liberty for one reason or the other. With those remarks, I beg to support."
}