All prisons are over-crowded, some holding five times the number of prisoners they were first built to house. The cells are cramped; one room measuring just six metres square might hold 20 prisoners.
There is no furniture, just reed mats for them to sleep on and the prisoners are locked in these cramped quarters from four each afternoon until the next morning.
A vast proportion of those being held have not even been convicted - instead, they are being held on remand, waiting for their trials.
When I last visited Kigo Prison, a few kilometres outside Uganda's capital, Kampala, the total number of prisoners being held was just over 700, nearly 600 of whom were on remand.
Emmanuel is one of those in that position. Now aged 53, he has been in prison since January 2004, charged with the murder of his brother.
Emmanuel vehemently denies the charge; he maintains that because he was one of the first on the scene, the gathered mob beat him and then handed him over to the police, believing him to be the murderer.
He still struggles with headaches as a result of the beating he suffered. With over 20 dependants at home to provide for, he is desperate for a trial and the opportunity to clear his name.
Emmanuel's story is repeated over and over again as we talk with the prisoners; it seems that almost 200 prisoners in Kigo have been on remand since before 2004, some for more than six years. Almost without exception they deny the offence they are charged with and many tell stories of police intimidation, beatings and forced confessions.
Is it any wonder that on our last visit one of the inmates cried out, "if you're going to keep me here anyway, at least convict and sentence me, so that I know when I will be out!"
So slow is the criminal justice system that prisoners are beginning to lose faith in justice ever being done. For them, their greatest desire is simply to know the date. How different to the situation in the UK?
Yet in this darkness, we have a glimmer of hope to hold out. As an organisation, UCLF believes that God's concern for justice is not just substantive, but also procedural. It simply isn't justice for these prisoners to be held indefinitely with no trial and no sentence.
Last week we filed bail applications for Emmanuel and nine other Kigo prisoners. Between them these ten have spent a combined total of almost 52 years in prison.
To date our efforts to secure bail for the inmates of Kigo have been frustrated, but the Court Registrar has indicated that these applications will now be heard in the near future. Please join with us in praying that would be so.