The external efficiency of prison education in Kiambu County, Kenya

Abstract

The transition that prisoners make from the custody and the control of the correctional institutions into the outside world has become a pressing concern internationally. Prisoners' reentry into the society has emerged as a lens through which to view the numerous issues related to the process of a prisoner's incarceration, release and subsequent failure or success on the outside world. Prison education is widely recognized as playing a central role in the successful reintegration of prisoners into wider community. This kind of education must be externally efficient by meeting both individual and societal needs. There is, therefore, need to look into the external efficiency of prison education, with the aim of improving the quality of education for inmates in terms of physical facilities, manpower requirements and funding. The objectives of the study are: to establish if prisons' rehabilitative education is externally efficient, to assess the status of educational and vocational facilities in prisons and to identify the challenges facing prisons' rehabilitative education in Kiambu County. The study is based on human capital theory. This theory is relevant since prison education should be externally efficient by making prisoners upon release participate in economic development and societal wellbeing. The target population of this study will comprise of 2 prison wardens, 23 prison instructors and the 1,364 prisoners. The study will employ descriptive survey design. The selected sample for this study will comprise of 2(100%) officers in charge,5(20%) prison teachers and 136(10%) inmates both first time offenders and recidivist inmates from 2 prisons in Kiambu County. Purposive sampling will be used to select the only prison with both male and female prisoners and also to select the officers in charge to be interviewed. From the remaining two male prisons, one prison will used for pilot study meaning the remaining one male prison will automatically be included for study, The prisoners will be selected purposively to include first time offenders and recidivist inmate. Participants will be selected through simple random sampling. Observation guide, questionnaires and interview schedules will be the major tools for data collection. Questionnaires will be administered to prison instructors (teachers) and inmates, while interviews will be administered to officer in charge. The data will be analyzed descriptively using frequencies, percentages, means and standard deviation using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS). Qualitative data obtained will be grouped according to study objectives and then coded. The result will be presented in form of tables and figure. It is hoped that this research will shed more light on the external efficiency of prison education in Kiambu County.