Kamiti Maximum Prison is not an obvious venue for a university graduation.
This week, 29 current and former death row prisoners and prison warders graduated together with law degrees from the University of London.
While only a small gathering of their families, policymakers and human rights defenders were present, the moment has national significance for those who care about crime and the continuation of death penalty sentencing.
The death row prisoners came from Naivasha, Kamiti and Langat’a prisons. All have been convicted of serious crimes ranging from grievous bodily harm, robbery with violence or murder.
Eleven are still behind bars, while four are now free and completed their studies upon their release. Fourteen former or current warders also graduated with them in a distance education course sponsored by the Justice Defenders organisation, the Kenya Prison Services and the University of London. Five women are among the 29 graduates.
There were 101 people on death row in Kenya, including two women, as of February 2024. While the death penalty remains on Kenya’s statutes, like 23 other countries across the world, Kenya is abolitionist in practice.
Some 112 countries have abolished the death penalty for all crimes. This leaves 55 countries that still execute their citizens. In 2023, only 16 countries led by China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and the USA carried out the most executions in this order.
Prisoner uptake of legal education programmes has led to well-argued petitions and landmark judgements. They include striking down of the mandatory application of the death penalty, inclusion of time spent in remand as prison time and crimes committed by the mentally ill increasingly being seen as a health rather than a criminal issue.
Prison graduates have successfully prepared briefs from advocates or represented themselves in a court of law.
As can be imagined, the challenges of reading for a law degree while behind bars are many. Most of Wednesday’s graduates lacked form four education and came from poor homes. Receiving her certificate, one graduate remarked that it was only until she was on death row and in the programme, did she first read the Constitution of Kenya.
Prisons are also noisy and cramped places. Whether in a cell of 6-8 or a ward of 80 people, it is often after midnight that students have time to read.
No desks, chairs or reading lights here, just a mattress, a bucket or your lap in a dimly lit cell. Then there are the fellow prisoners or warders who point out you might be executed at any time, so why bother studying.
For those successful enough to have their sentences commuted to life imprisonment and released after serving their time or pardoned under the power of mercy, the challenges outside of prison are no easier. Learning to become a parent, neighbour and citizen and reintegrating back into society is neither smooth nor straightforward. State aftercare and probation remain underfunded.
There are too few business and civil society programmes willing to take ex-convicts who have served their time, even those with a certificate of good conduct and professional skills like carpentry and tailoring.
Listening to graduates’ testimonies this week, prison discipline, counselling and education have a redemptive power. Most spoke about gaining a respect for the rule of law and their new desire to raise public legal literacy and expand the right of all to equally access justice.
As Correctional Services Principal Secretary Dr Salome Muhia-Beacco wisely reminded us, apostle St Paul wrote much of the New Testament for 2.3 billion Christians, from behind bars. Who says prisons cannot be opportunities for unlearning and learning?
Tuesday’s graduate Wilson Okumu was admitted to the Bar yesterday. With this irrefutable evidence, is it not time we join the rest of the world who have abolished the death penalty. Is it not time also, we admit rehabilitated former prisoners back into our communities?