|
|
Kenya: Private Jailers Could Help Ease the Crisis Facing Prison System
 |
 |
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
The Nation (Nairobi)
2 May 2008
Posted to the web 1 May 2008
Oliver Mathenge
Nairobi
The recent strike by prison warders exposed challenges facing the department and calls for urgent measures to put the facilities in order.
Authorities should explore ways to prevent overcrowding and improve working conditions for the staff.
The Government has over several years passed over the running of certain services to private companies as a way of enhancing efficiency.
These include water and waste management, street lighting, parking, public transport and railway services.
Plans have also been in the offing to concession the road network and the port of Mombasa. The move is aimed to improve service delivery.
Improve security
With the recent strike by warders revealing deplorable conditions under which the officers operate, the Government may as well explore the possibility of privatising prison services.
Countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Canada, Puerto Rico and South Africa use privately run prison facilities.
Privatisation of correctional centres is at times preferred in some of the countries because they provide superior infrastructure, improved security and better living conditions for offenders.
The prisons are also said to offer better rehabilitation programmes compared to public ones.
Various studies have shown that the private jails offer superior programmes that focus on education, offending behaviour, healthcare and training on basic and independent living skills.
The US was the first country to engage the services of private jailers followed by Australia and the UK.
South Africa is the only country with privately-run prisons in Africa.
Since the early 1990s, British governments have issued contracts to private firms for both the construction and the day-to-day running of prisons.
The first private remand prison in the UK is the Wolds which was opened in 1992.
G4S Securicor Group is among companies that offer rehabilitation, resettlement and electronic monitoring of offenders in the UK and the US.
About 30 of the 50 states in the US hire the services of Wackenhut Corrections Corporation, a leading firm in the rapidly developing market founded in 1984.
It manages 55 prisons in the UK, US, Australia, Puerto Rico, South Africa, Canada and New Zealand.
In the UK, the company operates an immigration detention centre at Gatwick airport and manages four prisons. In England and Wales, all prisoner-escort services have been contracted out to private companies. Prison education, catering, health care and construction work are put out to tender.
In the new development, private companies can be hired to provide correctional services, such as drug rehabilitation and job training. Just as a bank might hire a security company to guard its assets, the prison service hires a company to staff, train, and lead prison staff.
There is also operational privatisation, a system in which a private company is contracted to run an entire prison.
Governments provide policy guidelines and monitor the contractor's performance, but the day to day business of running the prison is left to the private company.
A private company may also be contracted to build or finance construction of prisons. On financing, the firm can construct the prison and then rent it out to the government.
However, experts warn that there is no such thing as a fully-privatised prison. Such services cannot be entirely turned over to the private sector because jails are part of the justice system.
A South African study notes that most private prisons were set up with aim of boosting service delivery.
South Africa
Just like in Kenya, the study adds that the prisoners in South Africa are kept in substandard conditions which violate rights guaranteed to them by the constitution.
|
The study asks governments to come up with law on management of private prisons.
|
Aren't there laws about disguising advertisements as news articles?
Aren't there laws about disguising advertisements as news articles? This is a naked marketing pitch for G4S Securicor.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Make allAfrica.com your home page | RSS Feed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top | Site Guide | Who We Are | Advertising | Search | Subscribe | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Questions or Comments? Contact us. Read our Privacy Statement. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
