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{
    "id": 593383,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/593383/?format=api",
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    "content": "place where people feel extremely threatened. This contributes to the corruption which we have today because people are trying to avoid prisons at all costs because of the image they have of what the prison will be. If you are confined, you are in a situation where you can be subjected, not just to harassment inside the cell, but to other indignified and things we cannot talk about in this House. What happens in some of the prisons is terrible. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, the proposed Committee of the Motion should also look at the status of prison warders. They need to be people who are sufficiently not rewarded but given an environment in which they can carry out their mandate more effectively. Sometimes you go to prisons and you find the warder and the prisoner in the same situation especially when they are transporting prisoners to the courts. Even in Nairobi when they are transporting them to the courts, you find them locked up in the same vehicle with them. There is need to change this so that even those who want to serve in that profession can feel sufficiently encouraged to do so. The Government, even as late as December last year, when the amendments to the security laws were passed, they introduced solitary confinement for some offences. It is enough punishment for one to be in prison but to confine one in the kind of solitary confinement that people were subjected to during those days of the single party in this country in which many people suffered---. For instance, the late Martin Shikuku; you know what happened to him when he came out of prison. He was literally indisposed and had to be taken abroad for treatment. Another example is what happened to prominent people of FORD in the early 1990s; some of them are still carrying the scars of the punishment they suffered in prison yet as Parliament, we are still enacting laws that encourage those kind of solitary punishment that make a person suffer for life. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I would like to encourage this Committee in terms of legislation, first and foremost to address the budgetary requirements and the place of that department within the Office of the President. Always, these correctional institutions or the prison department are lumped up with the police, Administration Police and within the Ministry of Interior and Coordination of National Government. Invariably what happens then in terms of resource allocation, they always get edged out. This needs to be looked at by this Committee. If you do not get sufficient resources, then you will not change the situation of the prison and the people who are in prisons in this country. Prisons have a potential. In the rest of the world, the prisoners develop skills and benefit the country. They do serious work, for instance, construction, industry and agriculture. They can benefit communities around that prison. At the same time they also build their capacity and skills so that when they leave they become beneficial. Those skills can be developed. It does not make sense holding somebody in a cage; you are confining him for 24 hours doing nothing. There is need to build the capacity. Some of these people are those who steal chicken and a pen, for example. They always get locked up. Nobody locks up a Senator very easily. There are very few guys who have skills who end up in prisons for a very a long time. The people you find in their hundreds of thousands whether it is in the USA, Kenya or elsewhere, are always the petty offenders because the law is never for the rich. As we all know, it has always been in practice for the poor. That is the fact. Therefore, those are the people who are in that place and need skills. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}