… Stakeholders Speak On How The NCS Act 2019 Can Be Implemented For Better Result
The facilities are dilapidated and congested. For instance, as at August 2018, the Port Harcourt prison built in 1918 and designed to shelter 800 inmates now accommodates 5,000, while Kirikiri Maximum prison in Lagos built to hold 956 inmates has become home to 2,600 inmates. Available statistics within the same period also indicated that out of the total population of 71,443 inmates nationwide, awaiting trial inmates stood at 48,702.
Also, Section 12 empowers the state controller of the service to reject more intakes of inmates where it is apparent that the correctional centre in question is filled to capacity. Do you think Nigerian prisons can be transformed into world-class rehabilitation centres providing opportunities for self-actualisation?
How do you think the second faculty, which is expected to reduce congestion in the prisons, would work? According to the Comptroller General of the Service, Mr. Ja’Afaru Ahmed, in his 2017 report, awaiting trial formed close to 70 per cent of the inmates, some of them spanning between 10 to 12 years. Some cases have hardly been taken to court for the first time. Also the issue of lack of basic amenities like food, water and inadequate medical treatment should be looked into.
Criminal activity is a disposition of the mind; it is about attitude of people and this attitude is reflected in three core areas — your belief system, which has to be dealt with; your feelings about things, which are your emotional responses; and the behaviour. The behaviour is a combination of your belief system and your feelings.
The long-term perspective is that even if the gravest offence is committed and the person is eventually pardoned, and turns out to be a good citizen in the society, it could also in a way have some purpose. Like rightly posited in the scriptures, it is not God’s desire for sinner to die but to come to repentance.