HC Deb 25 June 1956 vol 555 c13W
83. Mr. Fenner Brockway

asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies on what date juvenile prisoners and detainees in Kenya were transferred from hard labour duties in stonebreaking and brick-making, including the carrying of pise blocks and supplies of mud, to lighter gardening duties.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd

There has been no such transfer. As I said during the debate on 6th June, in practice the hardest work for young persons sentenced to imprisonment with hard labour is cultivating vegetables. The estimated maximum weight of pise blocks and loads of earth they carry is 15 lb., a weight considerably less than they are accustomed to carrying. Building work with such materials is not in fact heavier than breaking ground for cultivation. Young persons have not been employed on stone breaking or chipping for gravel. Detainees are not sentenced to hard labour.

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