‘I saw people with mental illness in prison’ says Sugu

Mbeya. Mbeya Urban Member of Parliament, Mr Joseph Mbilinyi alias ‘Sugu’ (Chadema) said he saw a prisoner living with mental illness, while serving his five month jail term at the Ruanda Main Prison in the region.

Mr Mbilinyi said that he saw people with such conditions serving jail terms in the prison.

In an interview with The Citizen, Sugu said as a leader he expected to learn challenges facing prisoners including inadequate food, poor building conditions, harsh treatment and congestion inside the prison.

He said his expectation was also to come across challenges facing prison officers. However, finding prisoners with mentally illness was an experience he totally didn’t expect.

“Though I expected to come across various overwhelming challenges, I didn’t expect to find that the government has failed to buy uniforms for prisoners. This confines most of them, since they can’t walk outside the prison without being in uniform,” he said.

 “I didn’t expect to see prisoners with mental illnesses there… but I found someone with a mental illness who has been in prison since 2001,” he said.

He said people in this man's condition were not productive, rather, they just spend taxpayer’s money to keep them there.

He said there are prisoners jailed while mentally ill, but some of them fall sick after the sentence.