GEORGE OLWALO examines the twisted world of delinquents who would rather spend their lives in jail than in society as free men and women
While most inmates stare balefully into space, certain prisoners are happiest behind bars, high-fiving warders and strutting around with full bellies.
To them, there is no better place to gain power, make friends and amass wealth than being inside prison walls. Being fairly clever chaps, they never commit serious crimes that would warrant getting locked up in prisons for eternity. They only engage in petty crimes that earn them short prison terms, with brief ‘holiday’ periods in the outside world.
Under normal circumstances, criminals evade police arrests. But prison joyriders don’t resist the law once they smell law enforcers hunting for them. Some even tell complainants to report them to the police quickest.
Joshua Ouma, 34, a resident of Migori County, served a stint at Kisumu’s Kodiaga GK Prison where he met inmates who were perennially in and out of prison.
“While everybody would mourn about being separated from their loved ones and their projects stalling in their absence, these chaps seemed to gain weight in a prison and grow thin the moment they were released,” recollects Ouma.
Orientation
The outside world treats such people as worthless, but inside prison, prison joyriders offer lots of invaluable services, especially much needed orientation to new inmates.
“For a fee, depending on the wallet of the new inmates, a prison joyrider can offer both protection and teach you survival tactics, which are crucial for one who finds himself or herself behind bars for the first time,” says Ouma.
Ouma says were it not for the money he paid to a prison joyrider, he would have found the two months he stayed in remand quite chilling. He adds that while majority of citizens consider such perennial prisoners losers and avoid their company, prison warders value the frequent guests of the State and even reward them with responsibilities since they seem to know prison rules and often behave admirably while.
“A prison warder once told me that those who commit petty crimes for the sake of getting locked up are trustworthy and more reliable than first time criminals who would escape at the slightest opportunity,” Ouma reveals.
Timothy Barasa confirms this, saying the petty criminals are so used to the system that they know who is who within a prison facility and also know how to squeeze most benefits from the system and survive.
“While other inmates received miserable food rations, the prison lovers would be strutting around with distended bellies, even exchanging food for valuable items such as cigarettes,” he reveals
An ‘amateur’ prisoner, Timothy did not know how to smuggle money into a prison. But with the help of a professional prisoner, he learnt that the loot is stuffed inside one’s bottom.
He reveals that one time while in remand, he attended a court hearing where a member of his family surreptitiously handed him a Sh500 note. He was at loss about how to sneak the money into prison. But when he sought the opinion of an experienced prisoner who was with him at the court, the fellow inmate agreed to hide the cash inside his rectum for a fee. The money was safely smuggled into prison.
No wonder prison joyriders are held in high esteemwithin prison corridors.
“These are the people that rookie inmates often rely on for counsel on legal matters because they are well versed in various types of crimes and court procedures. Even those who hire advocates to handle their cases still listen to them attentively. Their knowledge of court cases is amazing!” Timothy says.
He cites a case where a notorious ‘professional’ prisoner would always be arrested and charged with several counts related to robbery but would always successfully defend himself before the magistrate. While in remand, he was on crutches, but the moment he was set free, he stood up and walked away, leaving the crutches behind. Two days later, he walked by the prison gate and shouted to the sentries, “I will be back!”
Broad daylight
Alphonce Marwa, a resident of Kuria West District in Migori County, however, has no kind words for such people. He calls them loafers who fear hard work and are unwilling to engage in honest labour to provide for themselves and family.
“I have such a neighbour. He is a menace to the village. He behaves like a lunatic and engages in such ridiculous and laughable crimes. If he is not stealing wet clothes aired in open fields, he is harvesting immature crops from neighbours’ farms, stealing chicken and bicycles or milking people’s cows in broad daylight,” says Alphonce.
“It has reached a point where we are convinced that he engages in provocative crimes to find ways of going back to prison. One day, he even torched his own hut after quarrelling with his wife! Maybe we would respect him more if he engaged in manly crimes like, say, robbing a bank,” jokes Alphonce
Sometimes back, recalls Alphonse, the lout broke into an eatery at a local trading centre at night and ate all the chapati that had been kept in a sufuria but took nothing else. He was, however, caught by the night watchman and taken to a nearby police station. He was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison.
But upon release, he was heard boasting that he had come out of prison healthier and moneyed. Not that he remained moneyed or healthy for long anyway!
Alphonce argues that it is for such people, the on-going prison reforms geared at making incarceration more comfortable is a dream come true. Even in their 70s, they will still be engaging in petty crimes to go back ‘home’, he says.
Morris, a prison warder, agrees, saying, “They can’t be fully re-integrated back into society because they don’t want to. Despite the long held belief that prisons are terrible places to live in, they have horned survival instincts that are better suited for life in prisons than in the outer world.”
One such prisoner is reported to have constructed a permanent house while he was behind bars using money earned through mobile phone related scams. According to a source who spoke to Crazy Monday, the criminal coordinated the entire construction process such as talking to suppliers and hiring and paying workmen using his mobile phone. Such a fellow who has established a career of sorts within the prison system would never survive as a free man.
Dr Robert Nyakundi, a psychiatrist based at Homa Bay District Hospital, says cases of people getting addicted to prison life are not all that unique.
“All over the world, people crave for recognition and power. The fact that a person would feel superior and more knowledgeable than the rest is likely to make him or her develop love for particular places despite how bad others consider such places,” he says.
The psychiatrist adds that since these prisoners are known to the prison authorities and are treated as senior inmates and made trustees, they are bound to love prison. He, however, advises that prison authorities should instead sentence them to communal service instead of ‘housing’ them in prison.
“Such prisoners defeat the purposes of correctional facilities. When one loves prisons, then the best way to rehabilitate them could be keeping them out of prison,” he poses.
But until this is done, be assured that when you enter prison, you are likely to be welcomed by an inmate who is more at home in prison than in his real home.
