By Adonis Byemelwa
Dar es Salaam — On Saturday, 9th May, 2026, President Samia Suluhu Hassan advocated for a more radical transformation of Tanzania’s prison system, where authorities should focus less on punishing people and more on rehabilitating prisoners so they can reintegrate into society after paying their debt to society. Her comments were echoed by a debate across the continent about prison populations, reoffending and the economic and societal cost of ineffective prisons.
President Samia, speaking at the end of a senior leadership training course for prison officers at the Tanzania Correctional Training Academy (TCTA) in Dar es Salaam, urged that prison reforms be assessed based on evidence rather than solely through the introduction of new programs. The government also had plans to boost rehabilitation via vocational training, technology and wider social support systems, she said.
The Head of State said, “What is crucial is that these programs are evaluated based on achievements and not the quantity of training conducted. “We want to see where inmates actually learn job skills, how many are working when released and what effect the drop in repeat offences is.” Her comments highlighted a move away from conventional incarceration models towards correctional policies focused on community release and evidence-based public safety.
Tanzania is rolling out recommendations from the Criminal Justice Commission, led by former Chief Justice Mohamed Chande Othman, which outlined systemic weaknesses across almost all aspects of justice in the country.
It recommended reforms to eliminate unnecessary delays in pretrial detention, broaden access to legal aid, enhance rehabilitation services, and expand options for non-custodial sentencing for individuals accused of non-violent offences.
The commission further echoed international legal principles, including the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, widely known as the Mandela Rules, which state that “the purpose of a sentence of imprisonment is primarily to protect society against crime and to reduce recidivism.” It stressed that humane treatment, fair trial rights, and rehabilitation remain central pillars of a modern criminal justice system governed by the rule of law.
The Chande Commission also cautioned that overcrowding and unnecessary delays in the courts were compromising the role of prisons while increasing demand for state resources. It contended that prisons could be more than warehouses; they should produce citizens ready to exercise the duties of citizenship. One of the most far-reaching examinations of Tanzania’s criminal justice system in several decades has been done by the commission, legal analysts say.
In October 2023, President Samia commended the Tanzania Prison Service for implementing some of the commission’s recommendations, including the provision of accommodation facilities for inmates, expanded access to health care, and educational initiatives for juvenile offenders. Officials said reforms have also included digital court systems designed to reduce case backlogs and expedite low-level offences that drive prison overcrowding.
Minister for Home Affairs Patrobas Katambi said that the government had stepped up modernisation in the security and justice sectors to keep pace with technological and development changes. He cited the presidential pardon of 1,369 inmates and greater use of non-custodial sentences for over 5,000 offenders as schemes aimed at easing congestion and saving correctional costs.
The programme was developed as part of prison reforms, Katambi says, and has saved the government more than Sh21 billion in inmate care since its indefinite rollout. Nonetheless, the costs of incarceration are immense, economists warn, as prison budgets do not take into account how hard it is for ex-cons to find work or a place in society once released — disrupting families and communities long after prisoners have served their time.
Prison reform, they argue, be it through more and improved infrastructure or the rearrangement of administration, including resources, policies and practices, will not address endemic issues that lead to mass incarceration. Sustainable reform, they claim, relies on challenges surrounding mental health services, education access, post-release jobs and acceptance of the formerly incarcerated coming home.
Dr Esi Aba-Afari, a Chief Superintendent of Police in Ghana who is respected internationally for her focus on criminal justice and security reform, once stated: “A prison system that punishes without rehabilitating only postpones crime instead of preventing it.”
Her comments have been frequently cited in discussions of African criminal justice focused on rehabilitation as a matter of public safety rather than a humanitarian issue.
The road from cellblock to community, as you may have noticed, is still littered with systemic barriers that could crush well-meaning reforms under the weight of history. They say that without serious investment in vocational training and mental health services, the prison cycle will suck the wealth out of the nation while squandering human potential.
Rehabilitation, Education and Training (RET) is one of the very few independent projects able to measure how effective current rehabilitation is across the country, which is a critical barrier to getting decent, bias-free data, especially when looking back through time. In the absence of transparent metrics for post-release jobs and re-entry into society, these policy changes will remain rhetorical rather than serious structural changes to the state’s criminal justice system.
Realisation of the promises made by presidential decrees on decongestion within Tanzania’s penitentiary system does not require only political will; it also requires significant additional effort.
The country can no longer afford sole reliance on punitive isolation while continuing to ignore restoration, rehabilitation and the need for more meaningful options to incarceration in a democratically maturing nation.
Bringing back a humane correctional model based on dignity, accountability and reintegration is no longer desirable; it has become an imperative if we are to achieve justice, public safety and national advancement.
In the end, the measure of this administration’s legacy will not be how tall its walls are, but how many men and women never return to them. President Samia has laid the groundwork for a fundamental shift that might establish a different interpretation of justice for a generation.
The clock is running on these pledges, and the people will be watching to see whether the state can convert its wretched houses of punishment into Second Chance residences. The crux for Tanzania is: continue to imprison itself in the shackles of an era that has long served its time, or modernise its grip on the 1966 fabrication?
This evolution in penal philosophy signals a tilt towards “intelligent justice”, in which the state recognises that an inmate’s successful reintegration is the best guarantee of public safety. In Tanzania, this would spell bringing kennels with a national agenda on industrialisation and digital literacy, so that doing time does not mean wasted time
. That change will involve moving beyond the colonial containment mindset toward a vision of rehabilitation as an essential investment in human capital. If the incarcerated can gain market-relevant skills while serving time, they will become productive members of society when their term is up, so not only does this tax-and-spend policy bring them some income, but it also helps the state escape the long-term negative social and economic costs of crime and poverty.
In the end, a country is not judged by what it does to its worst offenders, but by how it rehabilitates its felons back into the pursuit of freedom. The gavel has fallen; a vision is in place, and the hard work of constructing a system that actually heals must begin.
