{UAH} Luzira Prisons: What You Don’t Know about Luzira Prisons
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1:15 PM |
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Each day offers all of us a chance to change, to put right the wrongs that we have done. But just how easy is it to turn your life around when you are facing years, decades, life or even death row behind bars?
Luzira is housing an estimated 20,000 inmates with 500 of them on death row, and 95% of Kigo's inmates, estimated between 1,000 – 3,000, are capital offenders. Convictions range from petty theft, armed robbery, kidnapping, murder, and rape.
Inmates on remand and those serving less than 20 years wear pale yellow overalls.
Prisoners wearing a more intense yellow are serving more than 20 years. Inmates who wear a red stripe have tried to escape, and a blue stripe indicates superiority, and entitlement.
Due to staff shortages, some inmates have been designated as regimental police who wear white arm bands, and keep the peace. Inmates on death row live separately from the main prison population, and wear white overalls.
The ethos in Luzira is to keep inmates busy, which makes the prison safer with fewer violent incidents. This in turn has created a low rate of repeat offenders with the level of recidivism at 30% in Uganda prisons compared to 41% in Ireland.
Despite these advances, there are often more than 40 inmates crammed into bare cells measuring just 8m x 8m. It is widely known that a large number of inmates are innocent, and do not belong in prison. Some inmates have been on remand for years due to the very slow Ugandan justice system. Since 2010 support from Misean Cara has totalled €100,000, and has been the saving grace of many inmates' redemption.
Recently, Government revived plans to relocate the prison facilities at Luzira in Kampala City and Kigo. This comes after President Museveni assented to the Public Private Partnership Act (PPP) that paves ways for the deal.
Finance ministry spokesperson Jim Mugunga said through the PPP, they will be able to relocate the two prisons. "Relocating of prison facilities in Kigo and Luzira is one of the outstanding projects that we are working on. You know Kigo prisons sits on Buganda Kingdom land," Mr Mugunga said.
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