The kind of cruelty that goes on in Kenyan prisons leaves people wondering if the prison warders are part of the human society, one could easily conclude that it is the warders who need rehabilitation, not the inmates.
But this cruelty only happens to local prisoners who have nothing to offer to the warders,however for the foreigners convicted of fraud related crimes are being offered VIP treatment at Industrial Area Remand prison after paying off prison staff.
Foreign fraudsters mainly Chinese, Koreans, Nigerians, Cameroonian and Rwandese get preferential treatment compared to their Kenyan counterparts.
Some have opting to have their cases heard while in remand,despite being given cash bails.
According to People Daily, VIP treatment includes special meals either prepared specifically for them or ordered from outside and new beddings.
They also have access to phone facilities, showers and unlimited medical prescriptions.
The remand prison is one of the largest penal facility in Nairobi and regularly hosts capital offence remandees facing murder, fraud and illegal immigration among other charges.
Assistant Commissioner of Prisons Samuel Ruto noted that the malpractices could either be taking place ‘quietly’ or had been happening before.
“Save for a few things that could be happening under the table, which really cannot qualify such claims…at least for now, if it used to happen before I came, I do not know, I have been here for 10 months now.”
Ruto however refuted allegations that foreigners were buying VIP treatment terming them as malicious and flawed.
“We do not allow that in this facility. We don’t do that here. I am not even aware of such cases. There is nothing extra we are offering them,” he stated.
Not long ago inmates at the facility went on strike, where they boycotted meals to protest alleged mistreatment, should not be taken at its face value. Neither should it be dismissed casually the way prison authorities are doing.
It is not possible that more than 1,000 prisoners would refuse to eat just because a few of them had been stopped from peddling drugs at the facility as claimed.
Prisons are correctional facilities, where criminals are meant to be rehabilitated and corrected so that, at the end their sentences, they have mended their ways and can fit back in the societies where they came from.
Evidence shows up to half of all remandees and convicts are innocent victims of circumstances in jail not because of committing a crime but due to lack of a proper defence. It is worse for remandees as most of them cannot raise bail or bond.