Petty criminals and prostitutes fill Mombasa prisons

MOMBASA: The probation department for Mombasa County says courts in Mombasa are jailing too many petty offenders and prostitutes filling crowded prisons in the region.

It has recommended non-custodial sentences for petty crimes, like prostitution, loitering and trespass to reduce the prison population in the area and save money.

On Thursday the department argued that lower courts, especially County Courts were misusing the discretion to jail offenders by condemning many undeserving people to prison.

The department says prison authorities spend Sh6,000 to feed one inmate every month and adds that there are 2,000 prisoners at Shimo la Tewa Prison, the main penitentiary in Mombasa. An official told The Standard that the prison's capacity is 700 prisoners.

Mombasa County director of Probation and aftercare services Joel Nyamora revealed that 60 per cent of inmates at the Shimo la Tewa maximum prison were petty offenders saying they were congesting the prisons and a lot of money is used in feeding them yet they could have been put in community work.

Nyamora said the money spend on feeding an inmate per month can be effectively be spent run the facilities better and improve the services instead of taking care of prisoners who should not have been jailed in the first place.

"It is quite unfortunate that we waste a lot of money on feeding inmates. Majority of them are petty offenders who should have been placed on probation and community services so that we can decongest our prisons and ensure the available resources are used to effectively manage the offenders especial those with capital offenses," said Nyamora.

Most of the petty offenses are, stealing, touting, trafficking, loitering with intent to prostitution, theft of stock ,handling stolen property among others which he said there was no need to jail such offenders and instead be placed on community services.

Nyamora also noted that next week, about 300 inmates will be released from the prison and be placed on probation in a bid to decongest the prisons adding that with more funding, they will be able to do the decongestion process quarterly to improve services in the prisons.

He explained that the capacity of the main prison is about 700 but there were more than 2000 inmates hence the need to stop jailing petty offenders.

"These county courts should stop jailing petty offenders, our prisons are overcrowded, if one commits a light offense there are community services our streets needs to be cleaned. Like in a day, the prison facility used Sh200 to feed one inmate this translates to Sh6,000 in a month this money could have been put to better use like improving the services" he explained.

Nyamora also asked the National Land Commission (NCL) to fast-track issuance of title deeds to the locals so that they can be used to secure bonds for offenders and avoid overcrowding in the prison facilities.

"Majority of these inmates are given fines or bails and most of them are unable to secure the bonds because of land issues. They don't have titles to the lands they are staying in hence difficult to use it as security," he said.