Incarceration on Perceived Psychosocial Effects on Nuclear Families of Male Prisoners in Nairobi West Prison, Nairobi City County, Kenya

Abstract

Purpose: The citizens of Kenya and members of the global community at large continues to experience increase in crimes that eventually leads to incarcerations and imprisonment of the perpetrators. However, these perpetrators and these criminals have on a larger scale been male or men. So much, have been done and put in place in order to reduce the crime rates and with it the rate of incarceration in the community. Some of the measures includes the campaigns on the respect and adherence to the law, the improvement of the constitutional provisions. Creation, gazettment and publication of additional laws. Despite, all these measures and strategies the number of crimes and rates of incarcerations continues to surge in Kenya. The purpose of this study was to investigation the psychosocial effects of incarceration of the male prisoners on the nuclear families in Kenya specifically Nairobi west prisons.

Methodology: The descriptive research design was utilized in this article. Primary data through the primary research tools the questionnaires was adopted for the collection of the dataset. The questionnaires were administered among families with fathers or male parents who were under incarceration or recently released from imprisonment in Kenya. This were composed of a total of fifty (50) respondents who had experienced incarceration or those who are currently incarcerate and are serving their time in the Nairobi West prison. The Statistical packages for social sciences was adopted for the analysis and management of the primary data that was collected. The tables and figures were used for the presentations of the result and findings. The main inferential statistics that was estimated was the regression model that is the ordinary least squared regression to present the association between the phenomenon under study.

Findings: The study established that there was a positive statistical significant association between the psychosocial welfare of the nuclear family members and the incarceration of the male parents in Kenya, specifically in Nairobi County. That the imprisonments and incarceration of the male parents leads to untold emotional suffering for the family members which causes an emotional gap that would have been addressed only by the male parent.  

Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: In summary, it is the responsibility of the entire society to stand and raise a child that is either male or female and ensure that their character and ethical standards are acceptable to the society. This means physically, emotionally, spiritually and in terms of discipline in order to cater for and avoid crime. If this was the case then the rates of incarceration would drop significantly and families and parents would stop suffering that is in most cases untold since most people suffer in silence.  The government of Kenya through the prions department should put in place laws and policy that allows parents to be able to interact with their families and maybe uptake roles that are designated for them. This means that the children and the nuclear family at large would not experience psychosocial suffering and effects as a result of the gaps that are left by the incarcerated parent whether male or female.