PRI has been active in Central, East and Southern Africa since 1994. We currently manage programmes in Kenya, Malawi, Zambia, Tanzania, Uganda, and Sudan and maintain contact with partners in South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Lesotho. PRI's regional office is in Lilongwe, Malawi.

Socio-political context

Africa has been plagued by decades of armed conflict across the continent. While conflict has declined following the signing of several peace agreements in 2005, the challenges of poverty alleviation and reconstruction in post-conflict countries remain considerable.

Overall, the majority of Africans are very poor, with an estimated forty per cent of Sub-Saharan Africans living on less than US$1 a day. Poverty extends beyond income to affect all areas of human life. According to the 2006 Human Development Index ranking, 11 out of the 31 lowest ranking countries are in East and Southern Africa.¹ These are: Angola, Mozambique, Malawi, Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi, the Democratic Republis of Congo (DRC), Rwanda, Zambia, Lesotho and Zimbabwe.

Poverty and inequality have a strong impact on criminality and the criminal justice system. Income inequality, rapid urbanisation, a young population experiencing high levels of unemployment and the proliferation of firearms are all strongly associated with crime.  At the same time, criminal justice systems are under-resourced. The lowest ratios of police and judges to the population worldwide are found in Africa.

Criminal justice in Central, East and Southern Africa

Different legal systems co-exist in the region including common law, civil law and Roman-Dutch law systems.

In Angola, Botswana, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda,Tanzania and Zambia, prisons fall under the responsibility of the Ministry for Home Affairs, while Burundi, Lesotho and Zimbabwe have placed them under the Ministry of Justice. In Namibia and South Africa, there is an entirely separate ministry for prisons and correctional affairs. Other countries have a dual prison system, such as Uganda, where only central prisons are under Home Affairs, while the other prisons are under the Ministry of Local Government. In Mozambique, the National Directorate of Prisons is part of the Ministry of Justice and the Prison Department is a department of Ministry of Home Affairs.

The death penalty has been abolished in Angola, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia and South Africa.

Penal reform challenges in the region

Ten years ago, heads of prisons from around the continent described the level of overcrowding as ‘inhuman’.² Prison populations have continued to grow throughout the region during this period leading to severe problems of overcrowding. In Kenya, the prison population exceeds prison capacity by more than 300 per cent. In Zambia the figure stands at more than 250 per cent, and in Malawi, Uganda and Tanzania by more than 200 per cent. These countries experience some of the worst levels of prison overcrowding in Africa.

Prison conditions are poor and often life-threatening due to bad sanitation, poor nutrition and congestion. The lack of prisoner classification systems and low-security facilities result in prisoners being packed together in prisons which are not suitable for their risk profile.

The crisis in prisons results from a series of challenges faced by the criminal justice system. Imprisonment is over-used for non-serious offences, while non-custodial sentences are few or under-used. Laws are antiquated; only three countries in the region have prison laws enacted after 1990. Court processes can take months, sometimes years, and suspects and pre-trial detainees are unable to access legal aid. In Uganda, Madagascar, Angola, and Mozambique, pre-trial detainees comprise the majority of the prison population.

How PRI is addressing these challenges

PRI is working in partnership with criminal justice agencies and civil society organisations in Central, East and Southern Africa to reduce pre-trial detention, encourage the use of alternatives to custody, promote diversionary mechanisms from the criminal justice system and assist with prison management reforms. We also work with regional bodies, including the Conference of Central, Eastern, Southern Africa heads of Correctional Services (CESCA) and the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR).

PRI is supporting the development of the Paralegal Advisory Service (PAS) as a model for legal aid in criminal matters. The scheme involves trained paralegals providing appropriate legal aid services to poor people in conflict with the law - in prison, police custody and at court. The impact of PAS has been noted beyond the prison walls. Case-flow within the criminal justice system has improved, the judiciary visit prisons and screen the remand caseload more frequently, the police are less prone to ‘dump’ people in prison pending lengthy investigations and relatives have a reliable source of information and assistance.

We continue to support the development of alternatives to custody for non-serious offenders. This work started in 1995 with the Zimbabwe National Committee on Community Service. Since then, PRI has been supporting community service programmes in the region through the provision of information and educational material, training and advocacy work, as well as sharing expertise.

PRI promotes a rights-based approach to prison management. It is currently providing technical assistance to the prison farms in Malawi to feed the ever growing prison population, encourage dynamic security and promote the use of open facilities for eligible detainees. We have also partnered with a Sudanese NGO to develop human rights training material for prison staff in Sudan.

PRI Resources and Publications 

A Model for Good Prison Management in Africa

Paralegal Aid Clinics:  A handbook for paralegals working in prisons

Energising the Criminal Justice System in Malawi

Rabbit Production Guidelines for the Malawi Prison Service

HIV/AIDS in Malawi Prisons

Community Service in Africa: an alternative to imprisonment

Path to Justice

Seeds of Freedom  

1. UNDP (2006) Beyond Scarcity: Power, poverty and the global water crisis. Human Development Report 2006. UNDP: New York.
2. PRI (1996) The Kampala Declaration on Prison Conditions in Africa.