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Most women in Kenyan jails for liquor offences

INMATES

Inmates at the Lang’ata Maximum Women Prison walk with a child. FILE PHOTO | NMG

Liquor crimes remain the single largest reason for jailing of women in Kenya, a new survey showed.

Statistics by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) showed that in 2017 alone, 5,145 or 64 per cent of the 8,004 female prisoners were guilty of alcohol offences under the punitive Liquor Act.

The data further showed that of the total 49,228 female prisoners, between 2013 and 2017, a massive 32,062 or 65 per cent were sentenced for liquor crimes. Most women are mainly pinned down for brewing and selling alcohol without a licence.

Nonetheless, the Economic Survey 2018 showed that the overall alcohol-related convictions amongst females in 2017 dropped by 35 per cent from the previous year’s 7,969.

The overall number of convicted females in Kenyan prisons fell across all age groups by 24.8 per cent last year with teenage convictions recording the highest fall of 85 per cent from 211 in 2016.

The fall in female numbers coincided with general reduction for alcohol-related convictions across both genders by 10 per cent to 26,024 last year, the lowest since 2014.

Male convictions for the crime had been on a climb since 2013 but marginally fell from 20,967 in 2016 to 20,879 convictions last year.

The government through the Interior ministry and the National Authority for the Campaign Against Drug Abuse (Nacada) has since 2013 stepped-up crackdowns especially against the sale of illicit alcohol amid indications that more than 50,000 people have died due to alcohol and drugs in the last one decade.

“We are losing close to 5,000 people a year. But the real cost to families, society and the economy is much worse. We have areas that primary schools do not have a nursery class because young men are not marrying,” Interior Principal Secretary Karanja Kibicho said in March this year when he launched a crackdown on illicit brews in 25 counties.

According to the Economic Survey 2018, the overall number of people committed to prison for various offences dropped marginally from 210,227 in 2016 to 209,870 last year. Convicted prisoners decreased by 2.5 per cent from 82,433 in 2016 to 80,404 in 2017.

“The number of persons previously convicted increased by 21.1 per cent from 14,724 in 2016 to 17,824 in 2017. About 10 per cent of persons committed to prison were sentenced to less than one month while 23.4 per cent were those serving prison sentences of between one month and two years in 2017,” KNBS further said.

Convicted prisoners accounted for 38.3 per cent of the total persons jailed in 2017. In 2017, for every 100,000 population there were 450.4 people in prison compared to 476.1 in 2016.

Convictions for all crimes have been falling since 2014, when they hit an all-time high of 108,485.

The fall in sentences came a year after President Uhuru Kenyatta directed police and the courts to expedite all petty cases pending in court in efforts to decongest prisons and reduce government spending in the incarceration facilities.

The government spends about Sh 388 million every month to cater for clothing, water and food among other services in prisons countrywide.