How community sentences are decongesting prisons in Acholi

A deliberate attempt by the Internal Affairs ministry to decongest government prisons across northern Uganda through promoting community service sentences and plea bargains is beginning to yield fruits, the Daily Monitor has learned.

Since July 2023, the Directorate of Community Service at the Internal Affairs Ministry rolled out the implementation of community service programmes in Gulu, Omoro, Nwoya, Amuru, and Atiak courts.

Community service is a form of punishment that benefits the community that has been harmed by an offender’s crime, and judges often order offenders to perform community service in addition to or instead of other forms of punishment, such as incarceration, fines, or probation.

However, Mr Tadeo Asiimwe, the chairperson of the National Community Service Division, says there is much opportunity for free labour.

“We are also missing free labour to use in cleaning our city, like garbage management. If you asked the department to send 100 inmates who have been sentenced to community service to collect the garbage daily, our city would be clean without us spending money,” Mr Asiimwe says.

Mr Ronald Mutebi, the Officer in Charge of Gulu Main Prison, says the Department of Community Service has helped decongest Gulu Prison because many convicts are now opting for plea bargains.

According to Mr Mutebi, the Uganda Prison Service introduced rehabilitation and integration programmes to easily integrate the convicts back into the community and bring acceptance.

“We also have a rehabilitation and integration programme whereby we let prisoners whose term of sentence is about to end have time doing community work, hence exposing them to the community that they will join when they complete their sentence,” Mr Mutebi says.

Mr Geoffrey Berbedo Latoo, 39, a resident of Kweyo Cell, Bardege-Layibi City Division in Gulu City, a beneficiary of the programme, says he was sentenced to community service nearly six months ago.

In 2023, Berbedo was found guilty of obtaining money worth Shs500, 000 by false pretence from a close friend.

He was sentenced to serve as a cleaner within the Gulu High Court premises and this landed him a job as a cleaner at the Resident State Attorney’s chambers following his good work.

Mr Berbedo says his family had been struggling to survive because he had no job. 

“They pay me Shs150, 000 every month, and that is what I have been surviving on until four months ago when I acquired a used motorcycle and started a boda boda business to supplement that,” he adds.

Mr Said Barigye, the Chief Magistrate of Gulu and chairman of the district’s community service committee, says community service can alleviate prison overcrowding while affording magistrates a diverse array of sentencing choices. 

“Community service as a sentencing option is very significant in decongesting prisons and also gives chances to offenders to serve their sentences from the communities in which they reside. Now we have 98 inmates that the court has sentenced to community service within Gulu alone, but people do not know; they think these convicts are not serving their sentence,” he says.

While the community service sentence promotes reconciliation and fosters rehabilitation of offenders through a range of skilling initiatives, Mr Barigye says there is a need for mass community sensitisation on the importance of community service sentences.

“This is because the community and some political leaders are not aware whether community service is also part of the punishment that is enshrined in the court of law and can be given to a convict but rather think the court has been bribed, which is not true,” he says.

Meanwhile, Justice Philip Odoki, the Gulu Resident Judge, stresses the significance of community sentencing in the Acholi, which is still healing from the LRA war characterised by petty crimes.

“We need to work much harder to make community service sentences more visible in this region. We have so many challenges of petty crimes that could be easily solved through community service sentences to reduce the case backlogs and congestion in prisons,” Justice Odoki says.

“This region is still getting out of a long conflict, and some interventions that the government has put in place to foster this cohesion are very important, and we should embrace them,” he says.
 
Progress report

This newspaper saw a copy of the status report on the implementation of the community service programme in Acholi, which highlighted impressive results.

The report presented the performance of the programme from July 2023 to February 2024 in all districts under the Gulu High Court circuit for the Financial Year 2023/2024 compared to the Financial Year 2022/2023.

In the Financial Year 2022/2023, a total of 357 (346 males and 71 females) offenders were identified compared to the reporting period with 468 (430 males and 38 females).

The improvement has been attributed to high stakeholder support for community service and increased sensitisation of inmates in prisons due to the physical presence of the officers in both Gulu and Nwoya districts, it says. 

The increase in petty or minor offences within the districts has partly contributed to the increased number of eligible offenders. The joint activities conducted by stakeholders have also promoted confidence among inmates.

The good results are indicators of further grounding and ownership of the programme in the reporting period; 286 orders (260 males and 26 females) were managed compared to 238 (193 males and 45 females) orders for the Financial Year 2022/2023, the report says.

“Out of the set target of 304 orders managed from the four districts during the period under review, 286 (260 males and females) orders were registered in the database compared to the previous Financial Year 2022/2023 with 238 (193 males and 45 females),” it adds.

It, however, points to several hurdles that stifle the programme, including the limited involvement of stakeholders in awareness creation campaigns and lack of facilitation for stakeholder training in the magisterial area.

In the reporting period, 205 offenders completed their sentences, giving a 72 percent completion rate; 22 offenders defaulted on their sentences; and four offenders were re-arrested, representing 19 percent. In the same period, two re-offenders were registered, which calls for intensive sensitisation and awareness creation on the importance of community service as a sentence.

While offenders serving community service orders are supposed to complete the sentence, continuous monitoring and supervision are conducted.