Kenya's First Female Boss of Prisons Tapped to Lead Training Initiative

NAIROBI - Wanini Kireri is changing the leadership landscape in the Kenya's prison system. Kireri oversees both men’s and women’s prisons across the country, where her leadership style has been hailed as firm but humane.

Kireri is the first woman in Kenya’s Prison Service to hold the position of senior assistant commissioner of prisons, and the first to lead the Prison Staff Training College, based in Ruiru, central Kenya, as its commandant. She joined the Kenya Prisons in 1982 and has been steadily rising through the ranks at the various institutions she has served.  Kireri says her second stint at Langata Women’s Prison, situated in the capital, Nairobi, was the turning point in her career and the beginning of her legacy in the prison system.