Kenya Clears Death Row

Published August 04, 2009 @ 04:29PM PT

More than 4,000 prisoners on Kenya's death row will have their sentences commuted to life, officials announced yesterday. Although the country hasn't executed anyone in two decades, thousands were languishing on death row. In comparison, the American death row population peaked at 3,593 in 2000 and was 3,220 in 2007.

From the BBC:

Giving reasons for commuting all these sentences to life imprisonment, President Kibaki said the law did not allow those prisoners to work.

He said this had led to idleness and had affected general prison discipline.

The impact on the prisoners' mental health was also given as a reason.

President Kibaki noted that the decision did not in any way suggest the abolition of the death penalty but said he had directed the government to assess whether the punishment was having any impact on the fight against crime.

Togo was in a similar situation, not having executed anyone since 1978, when the country abolished the death penalty in June. Let's hope this news means Kenya is on the way to becoming the 95th nation in the world to repeal this antiquated, unjust and ineffective punishment.

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Matt has worked and volunteered in various capacities in criminal justice reform for several years. When he's not blogging, he works as the Online Communications Manager at the Innocence Project. Views expressed here are Matt's, and don't represent the positions of the Innocence Project.