This approach assumes that the caregivers may have pressing needs which if not met they may not provide proper attention to those under their care. The care giving agents approach is a home grown approach to the work of rehabilitating prisoners. After many years of prisoners rehabilitation work, we decided to take stock of successes, failures and opportunities and lessons learnt in order to inform RODI’s PREP.

Working inside prison, with prisoners and prison officers is not as easy as interacting other communities. Prisons are closed institutions with a culture very different from other normal institutions. In prisons, security and discipline are paramount. Prison officers have these as two heavy burdens that forms part of their work. Unless the Criminal Justice System realizes this, it may be hard to see sense in some of the inevitable requirements within these institutions. Unless we pull in the same direction with the prison officers we cannot go very far. The tendency would be undoing our work. Officers are the ones who interact with inmates on a daily basis and therefore would be the best bridge to effect and maintain change if the way rehabilitation is done has to be effective. Like other people, prison officers would like to benefit from our training to form an integral part of the program.

It is an open secret that prison officers like many other Kenyans/civil servants are going through hard times especially due to poor terms and conditions of service, shelter and inadequate resources to do their work. This coupled with the need to observe high levels of security and discipline complicates the matter, making the prison officers as needy as inmates. Prison officers are employees not inmates who have not wronged anyone to be mistreated. It was on this realization that we focus on them as well. This is done through providing them with training alongside inmates (but in a different class room setting), allowing them to benefit from agricultural production materials that we bulk on prison farms, organizing seminars for them, training them in computer literacy and Appropriate Technology. The approach has paid dividends as RODI work is highly respected and supported by prison staffs. They feel they are part core in rehabilitating those entrusted to them and can offer training even in absence of a RODI staff. This is a strong sustainability aspect of the programs.