3,000 prisoners have been set free unconditionally by authorities in Zimbabwe as part of efforts to decongest the country’s prisons.
The Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Service has said that it expects the pardon to help reduce the numbers in the country’s detention centers to about 17,000 from some 20,000.
Zimbabwe’s prisons are overcrowded while a lot of public funds are spent to take care of those in jail.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa has now decided to pardon inmates who are terminally ill and over-60s once they have served a third of their sentence.
Convicts who were jailed on charges of murder, treason, rape or any sexual offence, carjacking and armed robbery are however not qualified to be pardoned.
Assistant Commissioner-General of the Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Service Alford Mashango Dube said in Harare that “The exercise has not only gone a long way in de-congesting our prisons, but has served as a reminder to inmates and society that the purpose of imprisonment is founded on the pretext of reformation than retribution.”
ENCA reported that beneficiaries of the amnesty include all juveniles, prisoners whose health is failing them, all female convicted “regardless of the offence committed, save for those sentenced to life imprisonment and to death”.
Zimbabweans have been urged to help in the reintegration process for those released into society.
Source: Africafeeds.com
