CORRECTIONAL SERVICES PS UNDERSCORED SIGNIFICANCE OF CPV PROJECT

By Nicholas Kigondu

Correctional Services Principal Secretary Dr. Salome Beacco has underscored the importance of community involvement in crime prevention.

Speaking during a meeting with the team coordinating the implementation of the community-based crime prevention, supervision, rehabilitation and re-integration of children and persons in conflict with the law project, the PS said community involvement in rehabilitation programs is critical towards effective offender management.

The three-year project, being implemented by the State Department for Correctional Services in partnership with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) through Probation and Aftercare Service, seeks to strengthen community-based offender management by integrating community Probation Volunteers into probation services.

According to the PS, the State Department for Correctional Services remains committed to ensure the success of the pilot project that she says will eventually be entrenched in the country’s correctional system to rehabilitate and reintegrate offenders.

 “We need to enculture the concept and ensure it becomes part of our strategy in offender management and crime prevention and an alternative to incarceration,” Said the PS.

50 probation officers are set to acquire proficiency as trainers of trainers and will be expected to train the about 1,000 community probation volunteers across Machakos, Kiambu, Kisumu, and Siaya Counties who will be deployed in the 8 pilot probation stations.

The team was led by Project Director, who is also the Probation and Aftercare Service Secretary, Dr. Christine Obondi and PACS-JICA CPV project Chief Advisor Mitsushi Edagawa.