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Abstract
This article examines the difficulties encountered by British colonial officials when attempting to determine the legal age of juvenile offenders in Kenya during the Mau Mau Uprising (1952–1963). It identifies a main contradiction in the management of juvenile delinquents. In a trans-imperial project of reform, colonial governments across the British Atlantic and Indian Ocean Worlds created or expanded legislation with specific age limits. The practice of actually establishing the legal age of children and young people in local communities that relied on divergent criteria of classifying generations, however, was highly contested and subject to inconsistencies. This article highlights the complications of transporting metropolitan legal discourses to colonial settings. Using several case studies rooted in the Kenyan context, this article demonstrates that the categories of child, youth and juvenile were highly unstable and contentious categories. This was not a problem unique to Kenya, as colonial officials confronted the issue in other parts of the Atlantic and Indian Ocean Worlds. However, this article explores how the context of the Uprising heightened tensions surrounding intersections of gender, age and criminality.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the co-editors of this volume, Audra Diptee and David V. Trotman. I would also like to extend my appreciation to Gwyn Campbell and Emmanuel R. Hogg for their comments and assistance. I am thankful to the two anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier versions of this article. Finally, I thank the Indian Ocean World Centre and History Department at McGill University for supporting this research.
Notes on contributor
Erin Bell is a PhD Candidate at the Indian Ocean World Centre and Department of History and Classics at McGill University, Montreal, Canada.
Notes
1. CitationFletcher, Truth about Kenya, 5.
2. For example, “Children in Kenya Prisons: M.P.'s Question on Life Sentence,” The Guardian, 25 May 1956, 1; “No More Whitewash,” The Guardian, 17 June 1956, 6.
3. The Colonial Secretary referenced this legalisation in a debate in the House of Commons on June 13. See House of Commons (hereafter HC) Debates. 13 June Citation1956. Volume (hereafter vol.) 554, Columns (hereafter cc.) 564–568.
4. Mr. Creech Jones, HC Deb (5th series), 6 June Citation1956, Vol. 552. cc. 1095.
5. Mr. Paget, HC Deb (5th series), 6 June Citation1956, Vol. 552. cc. 1117.
6. Mr. Brockway, HC Deb (5th series), 25 June Citation1956, Vol. 55. cc. 226.
7. CitationSchmidt, “The Ends of Innocence,” 1046.
8. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Mau Mau Uprising is the subject of large body of literature. This list is by no means exhaustive and represents a sample of the studies that attempt to explore the origins or unfolding of Mau Mau or the British response to it. CitationAnderson, Histories of the Hanged; !6!Berman and CitationLonsdale, Unhappy Valley; CitationBranch, Defeating Mau Mau, Creating Kenya; CitationElkins, Imperial Reckoning; CitationKanogo, Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau; CitationKershaw, Mau Mau from Below; CitationMaloba, Mau Mau and Kenya; and CitationThroup, Economic and Social Origins of Mau Mau.
9. CitationLonsdale, Unhappy Valley, 350.
10. As David CitationAnderson notes, these so-called loyalists were motivated by a variety of factors, including religious, moral, political and economic.
11. CitationLonsdale, “Authority, Gender, Violence,” 57.
12. The implementation of the Emergency Laws in 1952 allowed for any “young person” over the age of 14 to be sentenced to imprisonment. Moreover, there was no minimum age at which a child might be detained under the new laws. See HC Deb (5th Series) 20 June 1956, Vol. 554, cc. 95–114; HC (5th Series) 25 June 1956, Written Answers, Vol. 555, cc. 20.
13. The Kikuyu population numbered approximately 1.5 million at the 1948 Census but these figures were revised after examinations to a little over 1 million. See Central Province Annual Report 1950, 13.
14. CitationElkins, Imperial Reckoning, 235.
15. CitationElkins, Imperial Reckoning, 275.
16. CitationElkins, Imperial Reckoning, 275–276.
17. CitationElkins, Imperial Reckoning, 287; See also Fenner Brockway's comments, HC Deb (5th Series) 6 June 1956, Vol. 553, cc. 1131–1132.
18. CitationFletcher, The Truth about Kenya, 4.
19. “No More Whitewash,” The Observer, 17 June 1956, 6; See also “Prison Records in Kenya Altered,” The Times, 14 June 1956, 14.
20. HC Deb (5th Series) 20 June 1956, Vol. 554, cc. 1410.
21. HC Deb (5th Series) 25 June 1956, Vol. 555, cc. 232.
22. HC Deb (5th Series) 25 June 1956, Vol. 555, cc. 232.
23. CitationPresley, Kikuyu Women, 27.
24. CitationPresley, Kikuyu Women, 27.
25. CitationPresley, Kikuyu Women, 27.
26. CitationThomas, Politics of the Womb, 16.
27. My thanks to one of the anonymous reviewers of this article for this point.
28. HC Deb (5th Series) 20 June 1956, Vol. 554, cc. 1410.
29. HC Deb (5th Series) 20 June 1956, Vol. 554, cc. 1410.
30. See “Imprisoned Girls in Kenya: M.P.'s Press for Inquiry,” Manchester Guardian, 30 May 1956, 3; “Kenya Justice and Prisons: Two Inquires Sought,” Manchester Guardian, 15 June 1956; “London Diary,” New Statesman and Nation, 23 June 1956, 722.
31. HC Deb (5th Series) 25 June 1956, Vol. 555, cc. 233.
32. 32. “Conditions in Kenya's Detention Camps,” The Times, 7 June 1956, 14.
33. CitationElkins, Imperial Reckoning, 291.
34. HC Deb (5th Series) 31 October 1956, Vol. 558, cc. 1419.
35. CitationElkins, Imperial Reckoning, 291.
36. “Prisons in Kenya,” Manchester Guardian, 1 December 1956, 6.
37. CitationFourchard, “The Limits of Penal Reform,” 519.
38. As established in CitationDuckworth, Fagin's Children: Criminal Children.
39. CitationCox, Bad Girls: Gender, Justice, 5.
40. CitationFourchard, “The Limits of Penal Reform,” 521.
41. CitationIliffe, The African Poor: A History, 187.
42. Report of a Survey, 44.
43. CitationCentral Province Annual Report 1954, 2.
44. CitationCentral Province Annual Report 1953, 9.
45. CitationGeorge, “Within Salvation: Girl Hawkers,” 846.
46. CitationGreen, “Disciplining Boys,” 374.
47. CitationCampbell, “Juvenile Delinquency in Colonial Kenya,” 130.
48. CitationWaller, “Rebellious Youth,” 84.
49. CitationCampbell, “Juvenile Delinquency,” 130.
50. CitationCampbell, “Juvenile Delinquency,” 142.
51. CitationWaller, “Rebellious Youth,” 81.
52. Colony of Kenya Annual Report 1951, 17.
53. CitationSen, “A Separate Punishment,” 83–84.
54. CitationSen, Colonial Childhoods, 66–67.
55. CitationSen, Colonial Childhoods, 66–67.
56. CitationSen, Colonial Childhoods, 66.
57. CitationSen, Colonial Childhoods, 67.
58. CitationSen, Colonial Childhoods, 67.
59. CitationKanogo, African Womanhood in Colonial Kenya, 73.
60. CitationKanogo, African Womanhood in Colonial Kenya, 16.
61. CitationDavison, Voices from Mutira, 32–33.
62. CitationDavison, Voices from Mutira, 33.
63. CitationOcobock, “Spare the Rod,” 39.
64. CitationOcobock, “Spare the Rod,” 40.
65. CitationOcobock, “Spare the Rod,” 40. For example, in 1953, the African District Council in Embu District decided that no one should be circumcised before the age of seventeen. See CitationCentral Province Annual Report 1953, 9.
66. CitationOcobock, “Spare the Rod,” 40. For example, in 1953, the African District Council in Embu District decided that no one should be circumcised before the age of seventeen. See CitationCentral Province Annual Report 1953, 9.
67. CitationOcobock, “Spare the Rod,” and Daniel CitationBranch, “Imprisonment and Colonialism in Kenya,” 239–265.
68. CitationBranch, “Imprisonment and Colonialism in Kenya,” 249.
69. CitationBranch, “Imprisonment and Colonialism in Kenya,” 249–250.
70. CitationBranch, “Imprisonment and Colonialism in Kenya,” 249–250.
71. HC Deb (5th series) 27 June 1956, Vol. 555, cc. 455–666.
72. HC Deb (5th series) 27 June 1956, Vol. 555, cc. 455–666.
73. HC Deb (5th series) 27 June 1956, Vol. 555, cc. 455–666.
74. HC Deb (5th Series) 25 June 1956, Vol. 555, cc. 225–234.
75. HC Deb (5th Series) 25 June 1956, Vol. 555, cc. 225–234.
76. See works by CitationFrederikson, “Jomo Kenyatta, Marie Bonaparte, and Bronislaw Malinowski,” 23–48; CitationHetherington, “The Politics of Female Circumcision,” 93–126; CitationKanogo, African Womanhood in Colonial Kenya; CitationPedersen, “Nationalist Bodies, Unspeakable Acts,” 647–680; CitationPresley, Kikuyu Women; CitationThomas, Politics of the Womb.
77. CitationThomas, Politics of the Womb, 79.
78. CitationCentral Province Annual Report 1954, 7; “Rehabilitation in Kenya,” The Times, 20 October 1955, 9.
79. Resident Magistrate, Nairobi, “Juvenile Offenders Ordinance”, 17 June 1933. Kenya National Archives (hereafter KNA) AP/1/1699.
80. B.V. Shaw, Resident Magistrate, Nairobi to Registrar of the Supreme Court, Nairobi, 20 November 1933. KNA AP/1/1699.
81. Municipal Native Affairs Officer, 28 March 1944. KNA RN/1/58.
82. Ocobock, “Joy Rides,” 54.
83. “Juvenile Remand Homes,” 31 August 1955. KNA, AB 2/64/17. Ohanga was also the first African in Kenya to hold a Cabinet position in the colonial government.
84. CitationParsons, Race, Resistance, and the Boy Scout Movement, 171.
85. CitationElkins, Imperial Reckoning, 289.
86. CitationGriffin, The Autobiography of Dr. G. W. Griffin, 44.
87. CitationGriffin, The Autobiography of Dr. G. W. Griffin, 45.
88. CitationGriffin, The Autobiography of Dr. G. W. Griffin, 289–290.
89. CitationKarbio, Man in the Middle, 70.
91. CitationCentral Province Annual Report 1953, 4.
92. CitationElkins, Imperial Reckoning, 222.
93. HC Deb (5th Series) 25 June 1956, Vol. 5, cc. 225–234.
94. HC Deb (5th Series) 25 June 1956, Vol. 5, cc. 225–234.
95. CitationGriffin, The Autobiography of Dr. G. W. Griffin, 47.
96. CitationGriffin, The Autobiography of Dr. G. W. Griffin, 47.
97. CitationGriffin, The Autobiography of Dr. G. W. Griffin, 51.
98. CitationParsons, Race, Resistance, and the Boy Scout Movement, 171.
99. Prior to the outbreak of the uprising, there were two facilities for male juvenile delinquents, Kabete and Dagoretti. Perhaps not surprisingly, there were no facilities for female juvenile delinquents.
100. CitationAskwith, From Mau Mau to Harambee, 151.
101. Colony and Protectorate of Kenya Annual Report 1957, 90.
102. CitationElkins, Imperial Reckoning, 289.
103. CitationParsons, Race, Resistance, and the Boy Scout Movement, 173. Parsons also points out that rehabilitation at Wamumu was apparently successful, as none of the over 1000 young detainees who passed through Wamumu by the end of 1957 were ever reconvicted of a serious offence.
104. CitationOcobock, “Spare the Rod, Spoil the Colony”, 38.
105. CitationOcobock, “Spare the Rod, Spoil the Colony”, 38.
106. For more on this point see, CitationOcobock, “Spare the Rod,” 38; CitationWaller, “Rebellious Youth,” 81–82.
107. CitationBoa, “Discipline, Reform, or Punish?” 65–86.
108. CitationGreen, “Disciplining Boys”, 380.
109. CitationSen, “Juvenile Justice”, 85.
110. CitationSen, “Juvenile Justice”, 85.
111. CitationSen, “Juvenile Justice”, 85.
112. CitationSen, “Juvenile Justice”, 85.
113. CitationCox, Bad Girls, 7.
114. CitationCox, Bad Girls, 19
115. CitationCox, Bad Girls, 51.
116. CitationCox, Bad Girls, 13.
117. CitationCox, Bad Girls, 70.
118. CitationCox, Bad Girls, 70.
119. CitationCentral Province Annual Report 1955, 39.
120. See CitationCentral Province Annual Report 1955, 39; CitationCentral Province Annual Report 1959, 74.
123. CitationProbation Services Annual Report 1961, 71.
124. CitationProbation Services Annual Report 1961, 71.
125. Colony and Protectorate of Kenya CitationReport of a Survey of Problems of Child Welfare in Kenya, 43.