NAIROBI, Kenya Apr 18 – More than 60,000 offenders are serving non-custodial sentences countrywide and the government is committed to strengthening measures that advance restorative justice that expand community-based corrections, Correctional Services Principal Secretary Salome Beacco has said.According to Beacco, Kenya is one of the leaders globally that advance community driven correctional services that has resulted into greater community acceptance and integration of offenders into the society.In a speech read on her behalf by the acting probation and after Care Services Secretary, Shadrack Kavutai during the International day for community volunteers which was held at the Siaya Female Probation Hostels, Beacco said Kenya was committed to building partnerships that will see the country align its practices to international standards.“The United Nations rules on non-custodial measures remind us that community participation is essential in fostering rehabilitation, reintegration and preventing re-offending” she said adding “Kenya has taken this message to its heart.”The PS said that the probation and after care services, through partnership with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), has trained and formally appointed 604 Community Volunteer Probation officers who play acritical role in reducing recidivism.“Through their dedicated service, we are witnessing enough supervision outcome, greater community acceptance and more integration of offenders into the society” said Beacco.She however lamented that stigma still remains one of the greatest barriers to re-integration.“When society labels and excludes, it creates the very conditions that lead to re-offending but when the society embraces, it creates avenue for change” she said adding that justice must be meaningful when it restores but not when it merely punishes.The principal secretary said her state department recognizes the partnership between Kenya and Japan in institutionalizing community probation volunteers, a borrowed system from the Japanese system noting that the concept places communities at the heart of justice.Beacco said the department was taking deliberate steps to institutionalize the community probation volunteers programme within government planning and budgeting frameworks to ensure its sustainability and long-term impact and called for more support from stakeholders.