Early release from prison for good behaviour (remission)
Prisons Act; Kenya Prisons Service · sources read 5 Oct 2026
A prisoner serving more than one month can earn remission of one-third of the sentence through work and good conduct, so a 3-year sentence can end after 2 years. Remission can be lost for breaking prison discipline, and no one is released before serving at least one calendar month.
- Where
- Inside the prison: the officer in charge. Complaints can also go to a visiting justice or the Commissioner of Prisons.
Steps
- Ask the officer in charge to explain how remission works. The prison must explain it on admission and tell a prisoner if any remission is taken away.
- Ask for the earliest possible release date. The prison keeps a remission record for every prisoner showing it.
- If you think remission was wrongly worked out or taken away, a prisoner can complain to the officer in charge, a visiting justice or the Commissioner of Prisons.
- For exceptional merit, permanent ill-health or another special ground, the Commissioner of Prisons can grant extra remission.
Watch out
- Remission never leads to release before one full calendar month has been served.
- Remission can be forfeited for offences against prison discipline. None is earned for time in hospital through your own fault, or while in a punishment cell.
- Release is on the day after the sentence, minus the remission earned, is completed.
- The Act gives no remission to anyone serving life imprisonment, detained at the President's pleasure, or jailed for an offence under section 296(1) of the Penal Code (robbery).
- In 2019 the High Court (Ndago v Commissioner-General of Prisons) declared s.46(1) unconstitutional to the extent it denies remission to people jailed under section 296(1) of the Penal Code, and directed the Commissioner-General to apply this to other prisoners in the same position. The exclusion for life sentences and President's pleasure was not struck down.
- Remission can also be taken away by the Commissioner for the prisoner's reformation and rehabilitation, or by the Cabinet Secretary for internal security on grounds of public security or public order.
Who this covers
- Convicted prisoners sentenced to more than one month in prison, by one sentence or consecutive sentences.
Official sources (3)
- Prisons Act (Cap. 90), Revised Edition 2009, with the Prisons Rules new.kenyalaw.org · read 5 Oct 2026
- Prisons Rules (L.N. 60 of 1963) new.kenyalaw.org · read 5 Oct 2026
- Brown Tunje Ndago v Commissioner-General of Prisons, Constitutional Petition 28 of 2018, [2019] KEHC 6512 (KLR) new.kenyalaw.org · read 5 Oct 2026