The Human Rights Commission announced that although overcrowding in Rwanda's prisons has decreased, it is still a concern because in 2023/2024 it reached 121.8% from 140.7% in the previous year, which shows a decrease of 19%.
The inspection carried out at 13 prisons and children's prisons in Nyagatare found that there are no problems with regard to nutrition and the way they are treated, but there is still overcrowding in most cases. In December 2023, when the audit was carried out in all cases, there were 89,550 people imprisoned, including 70,260 people imprisoned for ordinary crimes and 19,290 people imprisoned for the crime of genocide.
The capacity of all prisons is 66,691 and the percentage of people in all prisons compared to their capacity was 134.3%, only the National Correctional Service shows that it reached 121.8%.
The President of the Human Rights Commission, Murungi Providence, when he delivered to the Parliament the report of the activities of the year 2023/2024 and what will be done in 2024/2025 on October 30, 2024, he expressed last year the density decreased but there is still a big problem.
He said, "There is still a problem of overcrowding even though some measures have been implemented. You can see that there has been a solution, the last time the density was at 140.7% when we were there doing the assessment in December 2023, the density had already reached 134.3% but in the discussions we had with measures were put in place mainly due to the policy of solving problems without going to court (Plea bargaining), there have been days of temporary opening of people, the figures given to us by RCS at the beginning of this month is that it has continued to go down, now the density has reached 121.8 %” Overall there was a 19% decrease compared to last year. "It's something to be proud of but 121% is still overcrowded," he said.
The commission found that the prisons were holding more people compared to the capacity of those they were designed to accommodate, namely Rwamagana with 159.2%, Rusizi with 158.6%, Nyarugenge with 158%, Huye with 143.5%, Muhanga with 142.8%, Bugesera with 132. ,8%, Gicumbi included 131.6%, Rubavu included 128.2%, Nyanza included 120.8% and Nyagatare included 116.8%. Murungi pointed out that there are prisons that are still operating in old and small buildings, which causes overcrowding.
Statistics show that in the previous year of 2022/2023 there were 86,274 prisoners. The commission found that 79 people in the prisons were locked up on the judge's decision of 30 days of remand that had expired. It is while 101 people were said to have been imprisoned but the time of their punishment has ended.
These include 43 from Nyarugenge Prison, 50 from Rwamagana, eight from Rubavu. Eight of these were prosecuted for ordinary crimes, the Commission followed up on their cases and they were released, 93 others were prosecuted for genocide, nine of them had their files available and the other 81 files were still being monitored in MINUBUMWE.
