More than 20 Officers in Charge of Prisons and other senior managers from the Kenya Prisons Service (KPS) are currently participating in a two-week human rights and leadership training. More than 80 KPS officers have already benefited from the course, with the target of having all KPS Officers in Charge trained by the end of 2017. We asked a few questions to RWI’s Programme Officer, Damaris Seina, who organised the training.
Why is this training important?
For many years, human rights issues have been received with a clenched fist and attracted a lot of negative attention in many prisons across the world. The course design aims to look at human rights from the perspective of corrections – rather than the other way around. The highly participatory training involves the prison officers discussing in groups: what the standards say and what they mean; how they contribute to good order in prisons; and finally challenges that may be experienced in implementing the standards, as well as strategies to overcome these challenges. The discussion sessions focus on practical, realistic and low- or no-cost solutions to meeting the standards.
What’s the objective of these types of trainings?
The objective of the activity is to train the participants in the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (Mandela Rules) as well as other relevant international standards, and their practical application from a leadership perspective.
In addition, participants will be sensitised on the role and functions of the KPS Human Rights Officer (HRO), and they will be requested to select a suitable officer from their institution to be appointed in accordance with the Terms of Reference for HROs. The selected HROs will then be provided with relevant comprehensive training under the RWI-KPS programme on implementing the International Standards.
What happens after the training?
The Officers in Charge select an officer who will be trained as a HRO to assist in advising, training, auditing and implementing the UNSMR. This pairing of manager with implementor has proved very effective, as not just the HROs but also the OICs have to fully understand the Standards in order to create an enabling environment for their implementation in their institutions.
So far, and emerging from the discussions, there is a realization that human rights are not about making the difficult job of a prisons officer difficult or cumbersome, but are all about professionalising and humanising their work, ultimately contributing to the safety of prisoners, staff and the community as a whole.
The training will end with participants drawing action plans which RWI and KPS will follow up closely, since it is concrete improvements in compliance with international standards – rather than simply numbers of those trained – that indicate success of a RWI-KPS activity.