| dc.description.abstract | The goal of rehabilitation is to prevent habitual offending, also known as criminal recidivism.
Rather than punishing the harm out of a criminal, rehabilitation would seek, by means of
education reformation programmes, to bring a criminal into a more peaceful state of mind, or
into an attitude which would be helpful to society, rather than be harmful to society. This study
sought to investigate the influence of prison rehabilitation programmes on reformation of
offenders among inmates in Kisumu Main Prison. The study was guided by the following
objectives; establishing the extent to which mandatory skills training influences reformation of
offenders in Kisumu Main Prison. Assessing how literacy training and education influences
reformation of offenders in Kisumu Main Prison. Examining how social and psychological
programmes influences reformation of offenders in Kisumu Main Prison. Determining how
access to spiritual religious programmes influence reformation of offenders. The study adopted
the theory of punishment based on the notion that punishment was to be inflicted on an offender
so as to reform him/her, or rehabilitate them so as to make their re-integration into society easier.
This study was guided by descriptive research design. The target population consisted of 2,300
respondents, that is, prison wardens, and the prisoners and NGOs that work with the Kenya
Prisons Service. To select the study participatory sample of 369 respondents from the beneficiary
population of 2,300 respondents’s, fisher’s model was employed to calculate the sample size,
purposive sampling was done in order to select frequent visiting family members together with
prisoners who have participated in the rehabilitation programmes. Data collection was from two
main sources; primary and secondary. In using Primary sources data was collected from selected
respondents using Focused Group Discussions, Key Informant Interview Guides, Observation
list and Questionnaires. Secondary sources included relevant documents and reports. The
researcher employed the technique to pick information that was available from these reports.
Qualitative data from FGD and KII was analyzed according to the emerging themes and sub
themes this was through selection of similar statements hence qualitative findings were
synchronized with quantitative findings. Quantitative data was coded to be entered into database
and analyzed through descriptive statistics (frequency, percentages, mean, range) were used to
describe the population. The study was presented in textual form, bar graphs, charts and tables.
The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) computer software was used for analysis
of quantitative data. In this study, the researcher followed the ethical principles of respect for
persons, beneficence and justice. The researcher’s major conclusion was that, prison warden’s
required qualification today, on top of the physique, for any individual prison officer and their
roles should be expanded from mere guarding against escapes to being educator and counselor,
which is only possible when the officers are specifically trained. The study generally established
that over 70% of the respondents seemed to agree that prison rehabilitation programmes
influenced reformation of offenders. It was a concluded that prison lacked nothing in the way of vocational skills and other rehabilitation programmes,and that spiritual guidance help in
reformation of offenders The researcher suggested that further research can be carried out on the influence of rehabilitation programmes on the reformation of young offenders at Shikusa Borstal institution | en_US |
