Within the walls of Kenya’s overutilized correctional facilities and prisons, there exist inhumane breeding grounds for disease, anguish, and even extreme violence.
Inside these facilities, cases of violence, disease, and overcrowding are normal. Most reports from human rights groups as well as former inmates paint a grim picture of deadly sickness, abuse, and neglect.
Times Digital Kenya has compiled a list of some of the most dangerous prisons in Kenya that are marked by brutal living conditions.
Kamiti Maximum Security Prison
As one of Nairobi’s most notorious prisons, instead of holding the intended 1,400 capacity, this facility is inhabited by over 3,500 inmates. Often dubbed ‘hell on earth’ by former inmates and human rights activists, besides reports of brutal thrashing by warders, Kamiti is also characterized by severe cholera outbreaks.
Shimo la Tewa
Also refered to as Mombasa’s ‘camp of death’, Shimo la tewa holds over 2600 inmates. With hardcore prisoners like pirates and terror suspects, jailbreaks and violent brawls are always a norm of the day. Here, wardens are beaten and even stabbed.
Kodiaga Prison
The dilapidated structures in Kisumu holds around 2500 inmates. Infamous for its high cases of murder and suicide, this prison is known to have very dangerous living conditions, including tattered mats and shortage of water and medicine. There was a time the facility reported around 10 deaths in just two months.
Naivasha Maximum Security Prison
Located near Nairobi, this prison is notorious for high cases of escapes, such as the 28 prisoners who vanished in 2004.
Here, some warders have been charged with beating inmates to death, post-release. Worst of all, the weird hierarchies compel inmates to teach each other during violence make life in this prison unbearable.
Nairobi Prison
This correctional facility is one of the most overcrowded, with over 3,700 inmates, where a cell made for five is forced to hold over 10, with just 2 mattresses.
Because of the body-to-body sleeping conditions, the place is always characterized by fetid odors.
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These inhumane living conditions disclose the reluctance of Kenya’s justice system in providing dignified living conditions for the inmates, who, despite being prisoners, are human beings with rights.
