A Judiciary report is raising the alarm over the increasing rate of released female convicts returning to crime compared to their male counterparts.
The recently released National Council on Administration of Justice report shows that while the prisons are vastly dominated by men, the rate of relapsing to crime among women is disturbing, suggesting that their incarceration could be turning them into hardcore criminals.
While a paltry two per cent of discharged male convicts felt at conflict with the law afresh, 11 per cent of women with prior conviction returned to crime.
“During the review period, recidivism rates rose by two per cent for males and 11 per cent for females,” the report says.
Experts say the phenomenon could be due to the difficulties discharged women convicts face in re-integrating into society, some of which include stigma and societal rejection.
Another round of crime becomes the only easy option. The report says during the 2023-24 financial year when the review was done, the male prison population with prior convictions vastly outnumbered the female population, with 14,059 males compared to 2,016 females.
According to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics that does Economic Surveys, there has been a sustained rise in women engaging in criminal activities.
For example, the 2019 survey found that there was a 25 per cent rise in convicted women offenders between 2017 and 2018.
According to a study by the UK Foreign Office on women recidivism in Kenya, women’s incarceration is linked to patriarchal structures, economic dependence and a lack of education.
Moreover, the prison population in the year under study was predominantly male, constituting 95 per cent of the total inmates.
Female prisoners accounted for the remaining five per cent. There were 58,179 men and 8,241 women convicts in prison in 2022.
In 2023, the number rose to 71,243 men and 8,828 women. By the end of the review period, 57 per cent of the prisoners had been convicted, with 43 per cent remaining unconvicted.
The data also shows that 95,137 men and 8,022 women were remandees in 2022 and the number rose in 2023 to 157,027 men and 10, 963 women, representing a sharp increase.
Additionally, many prisoners had received sentences of less than one month, totalling 14,424 males and 1,916 females.
Furthermore, there was a notable 49 per cent rise in individuals sentenced to death, growing from 94 in 2022 to 140 in 2023.
Rehabilitation experts argue that besides the societal hostility and stigma against offenders, especially those who have served prison terms, the country’s rehabilitation mechanisms are also to blame.
They cite cases where offenders, though men, were subjected to mob lynching and killings after relapsing.
Brian Oduor, a convicted criminal who had been freed was disappeared in 2021 only for his body to be found in Kinale forest in Kiambu. He was a member of an armed gang and had a pending case in Mombasa.
Another was Daniel Ngutire who was gunned down in Thika in 2021.Police say he had a robbery with violence case and had jumped bond given to him by Makadara law courts.
Police also claim Ndutire was a hardcore gangster who had stabbed a woman in Eastleigh and was part of criminals terrorising the city.
Analysts think the prison correctional mechanism, the Judiciary and the aftercare services should be reformed in terms of investment in re-integrating convicted offenders back to the society after serving their terms.
Shadrack Wambui, a city lawyer, believes most of the
inmates being released from prison are less prepared to
deal with the realities that await them in life.
