Kenyan gov­ern­ment offi­cials are work­ing to abol­ish the nation’s death penal­ty and replace the pun­ish­ment with life in prison. The rec­om­men­da­tion is cur­rent­ly under review by Kenya’s con­sti­tu­tion­al review con­fer­ence, a body com­prised of mem­bers of par­lia­ment, pro­fes­sion­al bod­ies and reli­gious and civic lead­ers. Kenya has not had an exe­cu­tion since 1987, but 2,618 peo­ple remain on the nation’s death row. Kenya’s assis­tant min­is­ter for home affairs, Wilfred Machage, not­ed, ​“The prac­tice has been used world­wide in the past but lat­est trends show that it is an abuse of an indi­vid­u­al’s right to life and it is not part of the mea­sures that can help a con­vict fit in soci­ety because they will be dead.” (ITV​.com, October 15, 2003) See International Death Penalty.

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