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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 NAIROBI 000356 
 
SIPDIS 
 
INL FOR KEVIN BLAKEMAN, JAVIER CORDOVA; AF/E FOR SUSAN 
DRIANO, DRL FOR MOLLIE DAVIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PHUM KCRM KJUS KE
SUBJECT: OVERCROWDING BIGGEST PROBLEM IN KENYAN PRISONS 
 
¶1. Summary: In late January, poloff joined a delegation from 
the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to visit three 
Nairobi-area prisons. UNODC is considering allocating some 
funding to assist the Kenya Prisons Service (KPS) in 
improving prison conditions. KPS officials seemed quite open 
in showing their operations, and requested training or 
technical assistance in dealing with inmates with drug 
addiction and mental health issues. While there was 
reasonable access to food, medical treatment, work, and 
educational opportunities, overcrowding was a serious 
problem, especially among pretrial detainees. Antiquated 
facilities also lacked proper sanitation, posing public 
health concerns. Post plans a follow-up meeting with UNODC 
and a local Catholic NGO providing assistance to inmates 
(Father Grols Welfare Projects) and will continue to monitor 
prison conditions as appropriate. End summary. 
 
¶2. On January 24, poloff accompanied officials from the UN 
Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) on a visit to three 
Nairobi-area prisons: Kamiti, Remand, and Langata Women's. 
Many of Kenya's prisons are housed in crumbling colonial-era 
buildings. The newest of the three facilities we visited was 
built in 1948. The Kenya Prisons Service (KPS), under the 
Ministry of Home Affairs, runs almost 100 prisons around 
Kenya, which collectively house almost 50,000 inmates. 
Nationwide, some 3,500 inmates have been sentenced to death, 
although Kenya has not carried out an execution since 1987. 
Most so-called condemned inmates are in effect serving life 
sentences without the possibility of parole, and are 
generally kept segregated from other convicted and remand 
inmates. Overcrowding, especially among inmates being held in 
pretrial detention, is the most urgent problem facing the 
prison system. Prison officials also struggle to cope with 
mentally ill and drug-addicted inmates, as well as to muster 
sufficient resources to address medical issues and public 
health and sanitation concerns in prison. 
 
¶3. We observed instances in these adult prisons of inmates 
who appeared to be juveniles or were juveniles at the time 
they were first incarcerated, although Kenyan law does not 
allow persons under 18 to be housed in adult prisons. (Note: 
The Youth Correctional Training Center is a sister 
institution to Kamiti and houses juvenile offenders.) Parole 
(called "remission") of one third of the sentence is 
theoretically possible for all crimes except murder or 
robbery with violence convictions. Under the current 
constitution, the President has sweeping powers of pardon, 
and may commute death sentences to life terms, release minor 
offenders, and/or grant early release to inmates with less 
than six months remaining on their sentences. Traditionally, 
the President pardons thousands of inmates (virtually all of 
them non-violent offenders) on Kenya's independence day, 
December 12. These pardons are an important vehicle for 
relieving overcrowding, and thus are welcomed by prison 
officials.  In 2008, President Kibaki pardoned a total of 
11,523 prisoners, including 4,980 on independence day. 
 
¶4. By law, Kenyan prisons are subject to a judicial 
inspection process. Judges are appointed by the Permanent 
Secretary of the Ministry of Home Affairs, which oversees the 
Kenya Prisons Service, to monitor specific prisons. The 
judges' reports are reviewed by the Ministry and forwarded to 
the Prisons Service for corrective action. Judges also hear 
inmates' complaints and sometimes make efforts to expedite 
the judicial process for remand inmates. The extent of 
oversight varies widely depending on which judge has been 
appointed. Judges can only be replaced by the Permanent 
Secretary at the Ministry, so prisons assigned to judges who 
are lax in their oversight responsibilities can often go many 
months without a visit. 
 
¶5. Kamiti Prison, one of Kenya's largest, houses almost 3,600 
prisoners in a space with a capacity of 1,500. On the remand 
side, eight inmates were sharing the small cells (roughly 
8x10 feet) while up to 80 inmates slept in the large cells 
(roughly 30x50 feet). Kamiti also has a "special wing" which 
houses celebrity prisoners like Tom Cholmondeley (grandson of 
famed white settler Lord Delamere, currently awaiting the 
verdict in his murder trial) and other sons of Kenya's elite 
in relative comfort. As in other prisons, remand, convicted, 
and condemned inmates are housed separately. Bail is not 
permitted in cases of murder and robbery with violence (RV), 
so most remand inmates are facing those charges. There are 
 
NAIROBI 00000356  002 OF 003 
 
 
also some inmates charged with minor offenses who cannot make 
bail due to lack of funds. Condemned and remand inmates are 
not permitted to work; idleness and overcrowding increases 
tension and violence among these inmates. Convicted inmates 
may work in prison workshops making license plates and 
furniture or attend school, although there are not enough 
places to accommodate everyone. Convicted inmates are 
permitted one visit per month; remand inmates have unlimited 
visits, although family members have allegedly complained 
about prison guards asking for bribes to facilitate visits. 
The food, prepared by inmate cooks, appeared adequate and 
nutritious. The menu the day of the visit was ugali (maize 
flour porridge, a staple of the Kenyan diet) and kidney 
beans. Guards are armed only with wooden batons, but did not 
seem to have difficulty maintaining order or getting 
prisoners to follow commands, even in the overcrowded remand 
section. Prisoner reactions to commands from the guards 
suggested that the use of force to maintain order is not 
uncommon. 
 
¶6. Remand Prison houses 2,700 inmates and has capacity for 
3,500. The warden, Pauline Wanja Ngara, estimated that there 
are 60-70 inmates with drug addiction issues that require 
professional treatment. The Prison Service has a policy of 
concentrating inmates with mental health issues in 
Nairobi-area prisons. They can be referred by the warden of 
their institution to Mathare Hospital, the nation's only 
public mental hospital, although Mathare has a long waiting 
list. In theory, if their condition improves, they are then 
returned to the prison to stand trial and/or serve the 
remainder of their sentences. Due to lack of space at 
Mathare, mentally ill inmates at Remand are warehoused in 
poor conditions in a separate cell block. They are also 
lumped together regardless of diagnosis, so someone with 
depression may be housed with others suffering from 
schizophrenia or psychosis. Prison officials do make efforts 
to relocate the most disruptive or potentially violent 
inmates to Mathare's locked ward. Remand houses some 40 
inmates with serious mental health issues, as well as 30 
inmates with active TB, all segregated from the general 
population. Remand Prison offers inmates the chance to attend 
school, and officials from the Ministry of Education visit 
the prison to administer national exams for primary and 
secondary school completion. 
 
¶7. Langata Women's Prison houses about 560 inmates, about 275 
convicted and 285 remand, and is overcrowded only on the 
remand side. There were more women incarcerated for minor 
offenses like loitering and petty theft than in the men's 
prisons, both on the remand and convicted sides of the 
prison, often because they lacked the funds to make bail. The 
warden cited the need for training on drug abuse treatment, 
noting that a significant number of inmates were addicted to 
drugs and needed help to address both their addictions and 
the underlying causes. Women who arrive pregnant are 
permitted to keep children with them in prison until the 
child is four years old. They deliver their children at the 
Kenyatta National Hospital. At the time of our visit, there 
were 30 children living in the prison. They sleep in a 
nursery, which was recently renovated with support from the 
local Rotary Club chapter and appeared clean and comfortable. 
Nationwide, Kenya has 13 women's prisons, as well as women's 
wings in some men's prisons, for a total of about 20 
facilities serving female inmates. In order to reduce the 
potential for abuses, all the wardens inside the women's 
prison are female. Some male guards perform perimeter 
security responsibilties, but are not supposed to have any 
contact with the inmates. 
 
¶8. The average wait to complete the judicial process is three 
years for RV cases, and five years for murders. We spoke with 
one inmate at Kamiti who has been on remand for seven years 
and has yet to complete his trial. Kenya does not permit plea 
bargaining (although draft legislation has been proposed to 
establish it), and the court system faces a backlog of an 
estimated one million criminal cases alone. When cases are 
transferred among judges, they must restart, putting the 
inmate in a surreal situation where portions of his trial are 
repeated ad nauseum without real progress towards a verdict. 
This is partly because Kenyan courts do not have court 
reporters. Instead, judges are responsible for taking notes 
on the proceedings, and there are no mechanisms for accepting 
a colleague's partial transcript of proceedings. 
 
NAIROBI 00000356  003 OF 003 
 
 
 
¶9. Comment: Although the Kenyan prison system faces some 
major challenges, the management team of the KPS was 
remarkably open about its weaknesses and areas where 
technical assistance is most needed. Unfortunately, any fixes 
to the prison system will be largely cosmetic unless the 
deficits in the criminal justice system that contribute to 
overcrowding are also addressed. Post continues to advocate 
for the implementation of the plea bargaining legislation 
that passed in December 2008, although the prison officials 
with whom we discussed it expressed some concerns that it 
could be a vehicle for corruption in the Kenyan context. We 
will continue to monitor prison conditions, including future 
visits to prisons outside Nairobi, and will meet with the 
local NGO doing prison outreach to discuss their perspectives 
on prison conditions, to be reported septel. End comment. 
RANNEBERGER