Population's perspectives on alleviating problems concerning overcrowded prisons
The population rarely discusses the role of gacaca in dealing with probÂlems concerning overcrowded jails. For many survivors, the issue of improving living conditions in the prisons is of little import, considering many detainees’ horrendous crimes.[399] Many survivors are also too frightÂened to discuss gacaca’s enabling the mass release of genocide suspects into the community.[400] Suspects themselves are often cautious about disÂcussing their chances of being released, for fear of having their hopes dashed, or because they do not want to negatively influence prison offiÂcials’ consideration of their cases by speaking too soon of their liberation.[401] The general population overall discusses these issues more openly, parÂticularly the socio-economic impact at the community level of detainÂees returning from prison and the impact of the releases for their loved ones who remain in prison.
Claver, a forty-seven-year-old brother of a recently returned detainee in Gisenyi, said, â€?The prisoners coming home has made a big difference to our lives. We are very happy that they have come back. It brings us joy to reunite our family members who have been away for so long... People now have their loved ones back for farming, so they can produce more.’[402]Both survivors and suspects discuss minimally gacaca’s contribution to processing the backlog of genocide cases. Nathan, a genocide surÂvivor in Nyamata district of Kigali Ngali, explained that one of the main reasons gacaca was necessary was that â€?there is a great burden on the government to fix the overcrowded prisons. The most important thing about gacaca is that it will speed up the genocide trials and it will be betÂter than Arusha.’[403] When asked why he confessed to committing crimes during the genocide, Thomas, a detainee in the Kigali Ville ingando, replied, â€?When we confess, we adopt the policy of the country. We realÂise that the prisons are overcrowded and we need to help the government do the job of fixing that problem. The government needs help dealing with so many cases.’[404] For many detainees, however, a great advantage of gacaca is not so much that it will â€?help the government' but that it will help them by facilitating hastier trials.11