Safe house for petty offenders: Inside Siaya female probation hostels for inmates
By K24 Digital Reporter, December 4, 2025The Principal Secretary for Correctional Services Salome Beacco has said probation and aftercare services have greatly helped to decongest prisons.
She added that the number of prisoners now almost stands at par with those serving non-custodial sentences.
Speaking in Siaya town on Thursday, December 4, 2025, where she presided over the official opening of staff houses at the Siaya female probation hostels, Beacco said that currently, prisons countrywide have approximately 60,000 inmates, the same as those serving non-custodial sentences under the probation services.
The PS said that a number of years ago, the number of persons serving custodial sentences was double the number that was serving community corrections.
“This is a testament to the effectiveness of community corrections,” she said, adding, “When you have too many people being incarcerated, you destroy the most basic unit of society.”
Beacco said that the state department for correction and aftercare services was working with other stakeholders to strengthen the participation of the community in rehabilitating the offenders and has come up with the concept of community probation volunteers, which is currently being piloted in four counties.
The volunteers, she said, are community opinion shapers who help the officers to understand the relationship between the community and the offender and also help counsel the offender to make it easier to reintegrate.
“We are more or less trying to do what we used to do traditionally before the concept of prisons came up – that the community is the one that solves problems in the society,” said the PS.
On the other hand, she warned that not everyone may fit in the category that benefits from community service, adding that serious offenders, such as those convicted of murder or robbery with violence, will have to be incarcerated.
The Siaya female probation hostel, the Principal Secretary said, is one of its kind in the country and serves female probation offenders who are either accompanied by their children or are pregnant.
“It is a safe house of some sort where offenders can be rehabilitated,” she said, adding, “Their offences range from child neglect, neglect of family, petty offences like chang’aa brewing, etc., which is predominantly caused by poverty.”