Mombasa senator Mohammed Faki has decried the increasing number of petty offenders congesting Kenyan prisons. Speaking in Mombasa Friday during the reopening of the Mombasa Court of Appeal, Senator Faki appealed to the judicial system to device ways of giving minor offenders alternative sentences instead of serving prison terms. This...

Mr Nelson Basubinin Duut, Director of Prisons Technical and Services, on Thursday suggested that Prison overcrowding could be addressed by decriminalizing petty offences in Ghana. He said studies on the current overcrowding situations of Ghanaian prisons from 2015 to 2019 revealed that our prison facility had an average overcrowding rate...

    Recently, key criminal justice players in Kenya, led by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecution (ODPP), pitched a tent in Lamu County for a service week. The intention of the state and non-state actors in this part of the All for Justice Project, which seeks to...

Mr Edmund Amarkwei Foley, a human rights activist, has urged the Government to set national targets to reduce the number of people in jail. He noted that the Nsawam Prison, for instance, was built to house about 800 inmates, but currently had more than 2,000. There was, therefore, the need...

An advocacy group, Prisoners’ Rehabilitation and Welfare Action, has called on the governments of Lagos, Abia, Enugu and Kano states as well as the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, to review their practice of jailing petty offenders, including street hawkers. PRAWA said following a survey it conducted in the four states...

In May 2015, the Legal Resources Foundation Trust and the National Council on the Administration of Justice commissioned an audit into the criminal justice system in Kenya, with a specific bias to pre-trial detention and case flow management. The survey looked at conditions of detention, the age of detainees, reasons...

Judiciary report is raising serious concerns over the number of cases being overturned on appeal, and the low number of suspects charged after arrests. The report, Status of the Judiciary and Administration of Justice, raises concerns about the quality of prosecutions as almost half of convictions by magistrates’ courts, which...

The High Court has ordered six police officers to pay Sh4 million to a lawyer they had arrested and detained illegally. The officers will also pay Sh3.8 million to 19 other people they had arrested and locked in a cell at the Ongata Rongai police station. Each of the 19...

South Africa’s move towards decriminalisation aligns with the developmental approach to crime and violence. Speaking at the launch of the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for Treatment of Prisoners (Nelson Mandela Rules) on 25 July 2018, Minister of Justice and Correctional Services Michael Masutha said drastic steps need to be taken to...

A number of convicts have walked to freedom after successfully appealing against being imprisoned for crimes they did not commit. The wheels of criminal justice in Kenya rotate very slowly, and it is not unusual to find such persons being acquitted after serving considerable time in the dungeons. Take the...

Since Aug. 21, prisoners across the United States have been on one of the largest prison strikes the nation has seen in years. They have several demands, but at the top is the end of the forced labor the state coerces out of them. Up to 800,000 prisoners a day...

The concrete floor of a prison cell crawls with bodies as detainees labour to draw their limbs closer to their torsos. The little light illuminating this daily custom, an exercise in preventing unwanted contact, enters through two small windows with bars on them. This scene, captured on film at a...

The criminal justice system in many African countries is characterized by widespread criminalization and punishment of petty offenses through arbitrary arrests which provides a basis for the violation of human rights of poor, marginalized and vulnerable people. Particularly for poor and marginalized groups, the justice system can be difficult to understand and...

In March 2015, the applicant was arrested by police whilst on his way to the market where he works as a street vendor. He was charged with the offence of being a rogue and vagabond. Section 184(1)(c) of the Penal Code provides that “every person in or upon or near any premises or...

Almost three-quarters of criminal cases in Nairobi and Narok counties are traffic violations, shows report The high number of traffic cases is disrupting the criminal justice system yet there is little evidence to show that sentences are making roads safe. Traffic offences constitute more than a third — 36 per...

The government has formed a task force to oversee the implementation of rules to enforce instant fines for traffic offences following a court order that gave approval. Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiangi says the multi-agency taskforce chaired by Transport Principal Secretary Esther Koimett has been given 30 days before the...

Many hawkers in Kenya, from anecdotal evidence, have been women. They educate, feed, shelter and clothe their children with the income from what they knew best and how they knew best: Selling wares in the streets and markets. It is their sense of dignity. But they are now being stripped...

India’s top court struck down a colonial-era law that made homosexual acts punishable by up to 10 years in prison, a landmark victory for gay rights in the world’s largest democracy. In a unanimous decision, five Supreme Court justices ruled that the law was a weapon used to harass members...

Many hawkers in Kenya, from anecdotal evidence, have been women. They educate, feed, shelter and clothe their children with the income from what they knew best and how they knew best: Selling wares in the streets and markets. It is their sense of dignity. But they are now being stripped...

New Delhi, September 9-- The unanimous Indian Supreme Court judgment which ended the ban on consensual gay sex in private is a landmark verdict which is a “call to action” for all countries in the Commonwealth which still use regressive, outdated colonial law, the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) said today. In...

By Dorothy Otieno  Almost three-quarters of criminal cases in Nairobi and Narok counties are traffic violations, shows report The high number of traffic cases is disrupting the criminal justice system yet there is little evidence to show that sentences are making roads safe. Traffic offences constitute more than a third...

Almost half of the 140 inmates in Warren County Jail have been prescribed psychotropic drugs, and more than half are receiving mental health treatment. It would be as accurate to call the facility a mental health center as a jail, judging by its population. The problem is, the staffers are...

By Joseph Muraya “”Sasa tufanye nini?” (What do you want us to do?),” it is a question one is likely to encounter if found on the wrong by authorities. One that echoes in the minds of many petty offenders, who are left with two options; giving a bribe or going...

By Ruth Kadide Keah. “My Press card and my job saved me from the agony of cleaning up Kibarani dumpsite along Mombasa- Nairobi highway” Seif Mkalla said, a reporter in one of the media houses in Mombasa. Looking stressed up by the experience, Mkalla narrates to me what befell him Monday morning...

By Melody Kozah 2 August 2018 South Africa’s move towards decriminalisation aligns with the developmental approach to crime and violence. Speaking at the launch of the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for Treatment of Prisoners (Nelson Mandela Rules) on 25 July 2018, Minister of Justice and Correctional Services Michael Masutha said drastic...

By Collins Odote A fundamental tenet of any civilized society is the guarantee that the rule of law is the basis of governance. This requires that everybody is treated equally before the law. The law is the balancing scale against which every action and individual is weighed. It is not about...

The Cape High Court recently dealt with the review of two decisions of the lower courts in which prison sentences were handed to two offenders who had previously been convicted of multiple possession of drugs offences. Both individuals were on several occasions charged with and convicted of possession of small...

The Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Charles Francis Margai, said he will work together with judges to solve issues around petty crimes. He said instead of sending offenders to prisons for minor offences it would be good to do community services or other options. Attorney General Margai said he...

CitiNewsRoom Human rights activist, Francis-Xavier Sosu, has welcomed a research report by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) Africa Office, on the need to decriminalize and declassify petty offences in the country. The report seeks to press the judiciary and parliament to begin the process of reviewing and amending the...

Early in the morning of the 6th day of June 2018, at Mariakani law courts in Kilifi County, 9 men and a lady were brought before resident magistrate David Ndungi. The ten were charged with the offence of being drunk at Mazeras market centre in Rabai Constituency. Ronald Apaka, Francis...

In March 2015, the applicant was arrested by police whilst on his way to the market where he works as a street vendor. He was charged with the offence of being a rogue and vagabond. Section 184(1)(c) of the Penal Code provides that “every person in or upon or near...

On 23rd June 2017, the Chief Justice of Kenya, Hon. David K Maraga, established The National Council on the Administration of Justice Committee on Criminal Justice Reform (NCAJ-CCJR) to spearhead a comprehensive review and reform of Kenya’s entire criminal justice system. The terms of reference of the Committee were informed...

On 23rd June 2017, the Chief Justice of Kenya, Hon. David K Maraga, established The National Council on the Administration of Justice Committee on Criminal Justice Reform (NCAJ-CCJR) to spearhead a comprehensive review and reform of Kenya’s entire criminal justice system. The terms of reference of the Committee were informed by...

Prisons are choking with inmates, and most of them were either convicted of petty offences or are pre-trial remandees. The Office of the DPP has been visiting the correctional facilities to assess cases that can be hastened to ensure faster conclusion. It aims to end unnecessary incarceration and pre-trial remanding...

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Marginalised and stigmatised groups in society such as migrants, sex workers, homeless people and drug users are at particular risk of human rights violations during policing and security operations because of skewed power relations. Sex worker rights and health organisations receive a high volume of complaints from sex workers regarding...

Nov. 25, 2016, 6:00 pm By LYDIA MATATA, @lydiamatata The Star Newspaper Esther served a three-month jail sentence when she began sex work aged 16. Unable to produce any identification documents, she was arrested with other sex workers during a raid on a hot spot in Nairobi. That was five years ago,...

In its deliberate engagement with residents and stakeholders on petty offences in Kenya, International Commission of Jurists –Kenyan section (ICJ Kenya) took its decriminalization and reclassification of petty offences campaign to Kisumu. Radio Nam Lolwe hosted ICJ Kenya’s Human Rights Programme Manager, Edigah Kavulavu and Moses Okinyi—the Communications Officer to...

Kenyans have always found themselves on the receiving end when it comes to the law due to lack of knowledge on the existing rules of the land, but as they say, ignorance has no defense. If there are six or more persons waiting to enter a matatu at a bus...

Many petty criminal offenders in remand could soon be released as the Government moves to cut its spending on remandees, which currently stands at approximately Sh388 million monthly. The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) is reviewing the cases of petty offenders at the penal and correctional facilities....

The National Council on Administrative Justice (NCAJ) recently launched the Criminal Justice Reforms Committee (NCCJR) on January 15, 2018 at the Supreme Court Gardens. The committee was constituted on June 23, 2017 following a series of advocacy initiatives by different state and non-state actors for the establishment of a structured...