15th May 2013
John Minja, commissioner general of the Prisons wing
of the Home Affairs ministry, made routine visits to prisons across the
country.
By his own admission soon after, the conditions in which he found most inmates were hard to bear and therefore called for urgent attention.
He was concerned that there are currently 38,000 people crammed in prisons, when normal capacity is 29,552, saying the obvious: the situation would alarm and pain any and all true lovers of justice and humanity.
Stakeholders including human rights crusaders, the media and various other special interest groups have for decades expressed grave concern over the plethora of problems prisoners and remandees commonly face.
These range from congestion in cells often due to needlessly long delays in police investigations and determination of court cases to poor feeding, unhygienic conditions and outbreaks of diseases to which some inmates
There is also the issue of gross misbehaviour or outright criminal activities in overcrowded jails, these including cases of indulgence in illicit drugs and sex-related offences.
All these problems suggest the existence of prison system crying out for immediate rehabilitation in more senses than one or we might see inmates turning into hardcore criminals upon completion of their sentences instead of rejoining society as reformed citizens.
Criminologists say the ordeals inmates go though are one of the major reasons some ex-convicts revert to criminal activities soon after their release from prison, adding that this points to failure by the prison system to live up to expectations in performing its conduct rehabilitation duty.
Home Affairs minister Dr Emmanuel Nchimbi declared in the National Assembly last year that he would liaise with his Justice and Constitutional Affairs counterpart, with a view to finding a lasting solution to overcrowding and crime in prisons.
He saw part of the solution lying in the implementation of an ambitious plan set to involve the employment of more magistrates and so strengthening the Criminal Investigation department (CID) as to enable it to expedite the pre-trial part of the judicial process.
The minister talked of measures such as renovation and expansion of prisons so as to house more inmates as well as continuing to improve their transportation from prisons to courts and back.
We call upon the government to launch a fuller Prisons decongestion programme in response to nationwide complaints about the huge number of people languishing in hardly bearable conditions in prisons across the country.
The programme should seek to reduce the number of people awaiting trial and to generally improve the administration of criminal justice. This goal will be attained if we are consistent in the implementation of our policies, thus guaranteeing continuity of efficiency in whatever we do.
At the end of it all, and with support from other law-enforcement agencies and the larger public, the programme will have tackled the major causes of overcrowding in our prisons congestion and such consequences as swelling numbers of repeat or hardcore offenders.
We would appreciate seeing the government work harder towards enabling the Judiciary, police and other relevant state organs to prove that Tanzania is really a country where justice is both done and seen to be done.
By his own admission soon after, the conditions in which he found most inmates were hard to bear and therefore called for urgent attention.
He was concerned that there are currently 38,000 people crammed in prisons, when normal capacity is 29,552, saying the obvious: the situation would alarm and pain any and all true lovers of justice and humanity.
Stakeholders including human rights crusaders, the media and various other special interest groups have for decades expressed grave concern over the plethora of problems prisoners and remandees commonly face.
These range from congestion in cells often due to needlessly long delays in police investigations and determination of court cases to poor feeding, unhygienic conditions and outbreaks of diseases to which some inmates
There is also the issue of gross misbehaviour or outright criminal activities in overcrowded jails, these including cases of indulgence in illicit drugs and sex-related offences.
All these problems suggest the existence of prison system crying out for immediate rehabilitation in more senses than one or we might see inmates turning into hardcore criminals upon completion of their sentences instead of rejoining society as reformed citizens.
Criminologists say the ordeals inmates go though are one of the major reasons some ex-convicts revert to criminal activities soon after their release from prison, adding that this points to failure by the prison system to live up to expectations in performing its conduct rehabilitation duty.
Home Affairs minister Dr Emmanuel Nchimbi declared in the National Assembly last year that he would liaise with his Justice and Constitutional Affairs counterpart, with a view to finding a lasting solution to overcrowding and crime in prisons.
He saw part of the solution lying in the implementation of an ambitious plan set to involve the employment of more magistrates and so strengthening the Criminal Investigation department (CID) as to enable it to expedite the pre-trial part of the judicial process.
The minister talked of measures such as renovation and expansion of prisons so as to house more inmates as well as continuing to improve their transportation from prisons to courts and back.
We call upon the government to launch a fuller Prisons decongestion programme in response to nationwide complaints about the huge number of people languishing in hardly bearable conditions in prisons across the country.
The programme should seek to reduce the number of people awaiting trial and to generally improve the administration of criminal justice. This goal will be attained if we are consistent in the implementation of our policies, thus guaranteeing continuity of efficiency in whatever we do.
At the end of it all, and with support from other law-enforcement agencies and the larger public, the programme will have tackled the major causes of overcrowding in our prisons congestion and such consequences as swelling numbers of repeat or hardcore offenders.
We would appreciate seeing the government work harder towards enabling the Judiciary, police and other relevant state organs to prove that Tanzania is really a country where justice is both done and seen to be done.
SOURCE:
THE GUARDIAN
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