The State Department for Correctional Services Principal Secretary Salome Beacco has directed probation officers to speed up the review of inmates who have committed petty crimes and served less than three years.
The PS said that the Correctional Services Department is supposed to improve inmates’ wellbeing by empowering them with skills to help them cope with life when they complete their sentences.
Dr. Beacco, who was commissioning the construction of the perimeter wall of Isiolo GK prison, said that the number of inmates in the prisons would be drastically reduced in the next five years since the petty offenders would be placed on Community Service Orders, where the number would be decreased by half.
The PS said the government provides skills to the inmates so that by the time they leave prisons, they will create jobs for themselves and also help their families.
She added that probation officers in Isiolo County are reviewing 121 court orders where some petty crime offenders would be committed to serv
e probation sentences that include planting trees and cleaning public and government offices.
The PS, who was accompanied by probation and aftercare services secretary Dr. Christine Obondi and senior prison and probation officers, donated blankets, shoes, toilet papers, and soaps and said that the government would take care of and support the inmates by providing skills and rehabilitating them before releasing them to communities.
Dr. Beacco said the government would still check the inmates’ mental and physical health while serving sentences and upon releasing them to the public.
The PS said the government spent a lot of funds on maintaining and upkeep for the inmates, where probation sentences would reduce taxpayers’ unnecessary expenditure and congestion at prisons.
She added that reforms currently being undertaken by her correctional department have shown positive changes and improvements where families can visit their partners and keep communicating with them so that families do not break.
Dr. Beacco
advised inmates to have discipline and have confidence in their prison officers since jailing a person was not the end of their life.
Source: Kenya News Agency