CNN
What the world's prison systems can learn from Kenya
August 10 is International Prisoner Justice Day. We take a look in this feature and accompanying video at some of the ways the Kenyan prison service is helping to transform prisoners' lives.
(CNN)When
Peter Ouko was sentenced to death for murder 20 years ago, he was sent
to Kenya's Kamiti maximum security prison, notorious for being one of
the worst jails in the world.
The
prison was modeled on an old-style colonial system, torture was
widespread, and inmates were forced to sleep on the floor amid squalor
and unsanitary, overcrowded conditions.
Ouko
was sometimes locked up in a small cell with 13 other men for 23 and a
half hours a day. Food was not guaranteed, and beatings were frequent.
"When I went to prison in 1998 it was pure torture, and for the first five years, I saw bad things happening," he said.
Ouko
faced an endless wait for his executioner as he resigned himself to his
fate, far away from his two young children and his old life as a
successful interior designer.
Ouko, speaking at TEDxKamitiPrison, discussing his inspirations and his anti-crime initiaitive.
He
also thought often of his wife. His dead wife, whom he was accused of
murdering after her body was found near a police station in 1998. Ouko
rushed to the site, only to find himself immediately arrested for her
murder at the scene. He believes he was framed.
"It
was devastating, but I felt that someone wanted to get to me. It wasn't
about getting justice because I believe that if it was about justice,
we could have worked together to get that justice."
He
would spend two years awaiting trial and his children were taken away
from him. Ouko later found out they were told he was dead.
Becoming a lawyer
But
the arrival of one man to the Kenyan political scene in 2003 would
drastically change the fortunes of Kamiti prison-- and Ouko's.
"We had a new vice president who brought the humane touch to the prisons department," Ouko says.
That vice president was Moody Awori or as he was popularly known, Uncle Moody.
"It
was a big deal when Uncle Moody came and decided to change everything.
The first thing, he outlawed torture. He replaced the baton with the
pen, " recalls Ouko.
Most
importantly, Moody started to treat the inmates like human beings,
providing mattresses and bedding for the prison service for the first
time, as well as access to healthcare.
"We
used to be carried in cramped up prison trucks where we could be packed
like sardines. It used to be called Maria. But when Uncle Moody came,
he brought buses where inmates could sit and be taken to court, and we
started calling them Moody Hoppers," he says.
But the most significant change at Kamiti -- and the one that changed Ouko's life -- was the focus on prisoner education.
In 2014, Ouko became the first Kenyan inmate to earn a law diploma behind bars.
However,
studying behind bars was not easy. It meant having to balance numerous
court trips, writing appeals pro-bono for his colleagues and advising
them on how to make their presentations in court.
Being
the most qualified "lawyer" among 2,000 inmates was daunting, but
people outside the prison walls were demanding his service too.
He
recalls that a Kenyan who watched his graduation on TV visited Kamiti
prison and requested his help to draft a petition to sue his employers
who had allowed their dogs to bite him.
The
man later came back to say he had been awarded $10,000, signaling to
Ouko that his education was not only useful in helping inmates, but poor
Kenyans too.
The African Prisons Project
Ouko's education was made possible by Awori's reforms and the efforts of the African Prisons Project.
African
Prisons Project (APP), a charity founded in 2007 by UK barrister
Alexander McLean, works to provide education and healthcare in prisons
on the continent.
McLean was
inspired to set up the charity after helping to treat prisoners in
Uganda while volunteering at a hospital in his teens and saw how little
value was placed on some people's lives, especially the poorer patients.
"I realized that there are people whose lives aren't valued by their societies, who live and die like dogs," McLean says.
The
APP trains prisoners and prison staff as lawyers. So far, 3,000 people
have been released from the Ugandan and Kenyan prisons after getting
legal services from those the APP has trained, according to its figures.
By 2020, they have ambitions to release 30,000 people from prison through their trainees.
"Our
students have been involved in several Supreme Court cases, including
one which resulted in the abolition of the mandatory death sentence in
Uganda," he added.
The APP will also create a first-of-its-kind law college in a Kenyan prison, which will open in 2020.
Breaking down barriers
Prisoners
advocating for other prisoners in open court, or advising non-prisoners
on the law, is uncharted territory in Kenya and most places in the
world.
These are the kind of reforms that have got people talking about the Kenyan prison system.
Kamiti now has a well-stocked library, industrial workshops, and the option for other students to study for law degrees.
They have organized a TEDx conference at Kamiti prison, and prisoners are learning mindfulness techniques.
Significantly, the barrier between prisoners and prison staff have been broken down.
"We
try to bring everybody on board, the prison officers, the prisoners --
we are a team," said Vincent Gumbi, a warden at Kamiti prison. " We
cannot achieve when we get walls between the prisoners and the prison
officers."
McLean says he has seen
a transformation in the attitude of prison staff. "We work together as a
family of prisoners and prison staff, " he says.
"We
have law classes where prisoners would be teaching the prison staff
law. Some of the staff we work with say 'before I started working with
you, I took joy in beating up prisoners. Now my joy is winning them
their freedom using the legal knowledge that I've acquired.'"
The
UNODC Global Maritime Crime Programme, which offers training and
support in Kenya's maximum security prisons, lauded the "excellent
relationship between officers and prisoners" in Kenya.
A
spokesman for UNODC said it's "significantly important for both
security and management of prisons as well as supporting rehabilitation
of individuals. Also, prisoners have access to family and friends as
well as access to rehabilitation services including vocational training
and education."
'Crime is not cool'
In
2016, Kenya commuted the death sentences of all prisoners to life
sentences and gave prisoners the right to vote for the first time in the
2017 elections.
Ouko was also
officially pardoned by Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and released from
prison after 18 years behind bars in October 2016. His death sentence
had been commuted to life in 2009.
Since his release, he has given a TED talk about his experiences and
now devotes his time to defending the rights of African prisoners
through his prison charity Crime Si Poa, which is Swahili for "crime is
not cool."
"The inmates who had
been released, we use them to engage the community. Go to schools and
speak to them... go out to the communities, we help them build cohesion.
We help them build peace in conflict areas," Ouko says.
US
prisons are already looking to other countries such as Norway for ideas
on prison reform, but Ouko thinks they shouldn't be afraid to look
further afield.
"It's a global
village. It doesn't have to come from the west to Africa. I'd like to
invite the administrators of the prisons in America and the Western
prisons to come to visit Kenyan prisons because there are best practices
to learn," Ouko says.
"You walk
into a maximum Kenyan prison, and you see people busy doing stuff. It
builds hope. It brings down the level of recidivism. It brings down the
level of tension in prisons. You shouldn't lock someone for 23 hours a
day. I was locked up. It didn't help me. It made me resentful and
angry," he adds.
It is a view
echoed by McLean, who says there are models of prisoner rehabilitation
being developed in Kenya's prisons that should be emulated worldwide.
He says "in Kenya, there's a sense that anything is possible in prison."
In contrast, McLean says, the UK had a high number of prisoner suicides in 2016.
"Billions
and billions of dollars are being spent imprisoning people. Our
recidivism rates are high and often prisons are characterized by
hopelessness," McLean says.
"There
are unbelievable lessons countries like the United States could learn
about making prisons humane places where lives are transformed, thereby
making society safer because people leave prison different from how they
went in.
"I look forward to seeing exciting best practices being taken from Africa to the West."
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