Senate is set to investigate overcrowding in prisons before making any recommendations to address the challenge.

Senators were supposed to draw recommendations for the government early February after reviewing the 2018/ 2019 report by the National Commission for Human Rights that assessed challenges including overcrowding in prison and teenage pregnancies.

“We cannot make any recommendations to the government because we do not have sufficient information on what causes overcrowding in prisons,” said Esperance Nyirasafari, vice president of the senate.

The senate agreed to send its committee for social affairs and human rights to investigate the problem of overcrowding in prisons and present their findings in details to the senators.

“The challenge of overcrowding has been in place for some time and several measures were suggested but they have not been implemented,” said Senator Lambert Dushimimana.

The new Criminal Procedure law addressed the challenge of overcrowding in prison by putting in place the use of an ankle monitors on convicts and suspects, fines and public work instead of keeping people to jail.

In August last year, Justice Minister and Attorney General Johnston Busingye expressed concerns over the fact that over 90 per cent of penalties given by courts is imprisonment.

Mr Busingye said the government was working to meet international tandards where the number of people going to prison can be equal to those leaving the prison.

Rwanda Correction Services recorded that in the same month August, 200 people were released from prisons across the country but more 400 people were imprisoned which is an indication that there were more people going to prison than those

The upper House is alarmed by a report tabled before it by the National Commission on Human Rights that found correctional facilitates overcrowded.

Senators now want to visit the prisons to gather details and advise the government on how to address the challenges released.

According to Rwanda Correction Services, there are 13 prisons which all meet international standards including five for female inmates and one for juvenile rehabilitation. There are about 70,000 inmates in the 13 prisons.

Rwanda’s incarceration rate between 2005 and 2017 is 563 prisoners per 100,000 people, according to the UN office of crime and drug data.

In 2015, Rwanda had its lowest imprisonment rate at 468 prisoners per 100,000 people as a number of genocide convicts were finishing their imprisonments compared with the 2005 imprisonment rate which was at 744 prisoners per 100,000 people.