A Study on community service orders in Kenya

Abstract

This dissertation is a study on the extents to which community service orders are utilized in Kenya as a sentencing option. The research for its writing proceeded on the hypothesis that community service orders meet the restorative justice goal, thus more should be done to ensure that more are meted, especially for petty offences. The dissertation explains the legal framework of these orders by drawing from national as well as international legislation. The statistics presented regarding the number of these sentences meted in the last year establish that they are generally few, and this has been attributed to the general lack of consistency in sentencing that existed before the sentencing policy guidelines were launched in 2016. However, the reforms made toward increasing the number of community service orders meted as opposed to incarceration are highlighted in the fourth chapter, are a testament that eventually the number of inmates in prison will decrease because criminal offenders will be serving CSOs for the petty offences they have committed.