Barriers to Pottery Production in Kenyan Prisons

The purpose of the paper was to investigate barriers to pottery production in Kenyan prisons. Descriptive research design guided the study. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used to analyse data in the study. Areas of study were Lang’ata, and Kisii women prisons. A total of 486 respondents formed the population of the study which included inmates, Officers-in-Charge of prisons and illustrators. Purposive sampling technique was used to sample 2 Officers-in-charge, 4 illustrators and 30 inmates who engaged in pottery, thus leaving a total of 450 inmates who did not engage in pottery. From 450 inmates, Krejcie and Morgan’s table was used to get a sample size of 205 inmates who were selected by use of simple random sampling technique. The study found out that pottery is confronted with barriers such as negative attitude towards pottery, inadequate facilities and resources, inappropriate teaching methods and lack of refresher training for illustrators. The study recommended that authorities concerned should ensure adequate allocation of funds and illustrators to undertake refresher training so as to equip them with modern mode of production for transmission of relevant skills to the inmates to assist them with reintegration.

Keywords: Pottery, Techniques, Education, Production, Inmates