Out-of-jail ‘inmates’ to save 9bn/- annually
TANZANIA could save up to 9bn/- annually if it granted alternative punishments to 30 per cent of the inmates currently serving prison terms, it has been learned.
According to Chief Justice Mohamed Chande Othman, it costs approximately 2,300/- per day to feed one inmate. There are currently 35,301 prisoners being incarcerated in different correctional facilities countrywide.
The country therefore spends 81m/- per day, 2.4bn/- each month and a total of 29.2bn/- per annum to feed all inmates. “Alternatives to imprisonment are less costly for the tax payer and the government than incarceration,” Judge Othman noted.
And yet, some 10,590 inmates serving jail terms of less than three years are eligible for alternative punishment through the Community Service Act of 2002. “Between July 2005 and September, this year, only 6,129 convicted persons have done community services as a penal sanction and as we speak there are 1,518 persons serving community orders.
The majority who are eligible are still within prison walls. “The full result and end product of the legislation which came into effect almost a decade ago has not been fully exploited by all concerned and yet it can absorb to the community about a third of those incarcerated,” Justice Othman said.
The CJ made the remarks at the Africa Alternatives to Imprisonment Inaugural Meeting held in Dar es Salaam last week. It was co-hosted by Tanzania and Penal Reform International (PRI). The meeting was attended by heads of probation and community service departments in Africa, civil society organisations as well as inter-governmental and non-governmental organisations.
“Alternatives to imprisonment and the use of non-custodial sanctions as a matter of penal policy is an urgent imperative for Africa, as they have proved to be more efficient in reforming convicts.
“It is known that some inmates come outof prisons as more hardened criminals than they were before entering it,” Judge Othman told delegates at the two-day meeting.
He pointed out the fact that imprisonment is appropriate, fair and just for certain offenders but is not for others, particularly first and non-violent offenders involved in petty or victimless or similar crimes.
It was, however, noted during the meeting that inadequate social service workers and equipment as well as lack of public awareness as among challenges facing implementation of the Community Service Act.“
Alternatives to prison sentences will also reduce overcrowding in our correctional facilities,” Chairperson of the Tanzania National Community Service Committee, Judge Shabani Lila, said.
According to Judge Lila, total population in Tanzania’s correctional facilities currently stands at over 35,301 prisoners against the capacity of 29,552. In a speech read on his behalf by Deputy Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs, Mwamini Malemi, Mr Emmanuel Nchimbi, noted that only few countries in Africa have taken notable initiatives to establish community correctional services.
Reached for comments, the Commissioner General of Prisons Department, John Minja said he could not comment on the matter as he was out of the country.
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