African Prisons Project

Who we are

We work in a continent where physical punishment and the death penalty are still widespread and where, for many people, a prison sentence means hard labour. 

In Africa police forces and prison services are often underfunded and undertrained, where many people are in prisons for being vagabonds or vagrants, debtors and loiterers, criminal lunatics or lunatic criminals. Almost all of the prisoners that we serve have never met a lawyer. Many wait in prison for years, even decades before going to court and in many countries more than two thirds of prisoners have not been convicted of an offence.

The African Prisons Project (APP) is a community of people passionately committed to bringing dignity, hope and justice to men, women and children in African prisons ensuring equitable access to justice, health and education. Our 2020 strategy focuses on developing changemakers amongst prison staff and inmates who use the law to bring justice to the most vulnerable in society; to begin assembling world-class law teachers, law makers and practitioners to aid the training and development of our people; and to plan our expansion as we look to establish ourselves as a social enterprise, offering legal education and legal services in Africa and beyond.

We work as an intentional community of prisoners, ex-prisoners, prison staff and others, recognising that we are all sinners and saints who bring a unique set of gifts and skills to the community.

We work to establish a new model of imprisonment through equipping change makers amongst prisoners and prisons staff to more effectively serve their communities and nations. We are privileged to work alongside these gifted and talented men and women to creatively make prisons places of positive transformation. 

As an organisation we want to pay attention to how we do things, not just what we do. And as a growing community we recognise the need to support, nurture and show gratitude to each other and those we serve, equipping ourselves for a marathon rather than a sprint. We hope to be characterised by our attention to detail in all that we do.

Join us as we build a global movement that will see prisons become a place of positive transformation, and their people the changemakers of our future.