A national taskforce has recommended that all top prison officers be vetted within stipulated timelines.
The National Taskforce on Improvement of Terms and Conditions of Service and other Reforms for Members of the National Police Service, National Youth Service and Kenya Prisons Service wants all top prison officers to be vetted within six months.
This is aimed at addressing leadership challenges that are affecting the prisons.
“The taskforce recommended a fresh vetting by an independent panel to be appointed by the President for all officers of the rank of Senior Superintendent of Prisons (SSP) and above (save for the current CGP) within six months of publication of the Report,” says the report by the team.
It said the entry requirement into the Service should be capped at a minimum grade C minus (C-) except for candidates from marginalised areas.
To address the challenges around immaturity prevalent in the entrants, the minimum recruitment age should be raised from 18 to 21 years for the respective Services, the team says.
To be able to undertake relevant theoretical and practical training including field attachments to ensure competency in training and professionalism, the initial training for cadets should take not less than 15 months while the one for constables should not be less than 12 months.
“As is the case with the NPS, the Taskforce established that the stagnation of the KPS junior officers in one rank, in many cases until retirement, is a source of widespread discontent and low morale in the Service. The Taskforce, therefore, recommends the establishment of grades of Inspector II and I and the introduction of Constable III, II, and I, and Corporal III, II, and I within the same ranks.”
The team said it established the prisons have had an annual average funding deficit of about 40 per cent since 2008.
“This has affected its institutional development. Worse still, unlike the case in the National Police Service, there is no modernization plan in place for Kenya Prisons Service,” the report says.
It adds prisons have large tracts of land that should have been utilized to ensure self-sufficiency in food supply.
However, the farms have, however, been run down owing to a lack of resources as well as leadership wrangles, poor management that lacks innovation, and endemic corruption.
The report added overcrowding is a perennial problem as prison facilities currently have capacity for 29,000 inmates but they are often forced to hold over 60,000.
“In some instances, insufficient ablution and sanitation facilities force inmates to use buckets in the poorly ventilated prison dormitories. Nothing can be more dehumanizing and offensive to the inmates’ rights to dignity, privacy, and a clean environment.”
“In many prisons across the country, the KPS officers’ living conditions are dehumanizing. As is the case with the NPS, officers in KPS and their families live in mud housing, dilapidated, congested, and condemned structures,” the report adds.
The report was handed over to President William Ruto at the State House on Thursday. The president ordered its implementation.
It added in some KPS stations, different families live in dormitories with each family only separated by a curtain. Officers also live in tents or shacks that they construct for themselves.
The team recommended that the government to adequately fund the KPS to modernize its facilities, tooling, equipment and gear, and enhance its logistical as well as technological capabilities, and provide decent housing for its officers to address these challenges.
The team was informed that corruption deeply permeates every aspect of KPS from recruitment, promotions, deployment, transfers to procurement and that the senior leadership of the service is largely disconnected from the daily realities of junior officers.
“Such are the levels of nepotism and corruption in recruitment into the KPS that several officers have had their family members employed in the Service. Some of these family members are serving together in the same station, thus creating huge command challenges. The task force was informed that some prison operations are run like family affairs.”
The team led by former Chief Justice David Maraga said while the Madoka Committee prescribed external leadership as a response to the challenges in the KPS, every Commissioner-General appointed since has always encountered internal entrenched interests which they benefit from and are keen to preserve the status quo.
“As such, the challenges to the leadership manifest in the form of capture of any new leadership or resistance to progressive reform.”
The adoption of an “Open Door Policy” in 2001, in the hitherto closed KPS, paved the way for reforms, transparency, and critical partnerships.
Low pay, poor working and living conditions, outdated tools and equipment as well as lack of support for welfare concerns, among other issues, were cited as the main causes of ineptitude and low morale in prisons.