Prisoners’ Rehabilitation And Crime Reduction

On September 18, the Chief Judge of Lagos State, Justice Ayotunde Phillips, released 233 inmates from the Kirikiri Medium and Maximum Security Prisons in Apapa, Lagos.

Phillips set the prisoners free during her visit to the prisons.

One hundred and thirty of the released prisoners were from the maximum security prison and 103 were from the medium security prison.

Some of the freed prisoners, according to the prison authorities, had spent more than 12 years in prison awaiting trial.

Phillips said that the prisoners’ release was pursuant to the provisions of Section 1(1) of the Criminal Justice Release from Custody Special Provision Act CAP C40, 2007, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria.

She said the law empowered the chief judge to grant freedom to inmates who had been in custody for a long duration awaiting trial and those who had shown genuine remorse for their offences.

According to her, the gesture is also aimed at reducing prison congestion.

“This is our own little way of reducing congestion in our prisons.

“Besides, there is a maxim we have in law that it is better for 10 guilty persons to go free than for one innocent person to be unjustly incarcerated.

“For those of you who are lucky to be released today, I admonish you to go and sin no more; I want you to go and make your mark positively in the society”, Phillips told the inmates.

The chief judge, however, warned against the temptation of releasing prisoners arbitrarily, stressing that a thorough screening of the inmates ought to be carried out before any release was affected.

She pledged to visit prisons regularly to carry out similar exercises in future.

In his remarks, Mr Tinu Oye, the Deputy Controller, Kirikiri Maximum Security Prison, commended the chief judge for the gesture, noting that some of the inmates had spent more than 12 years in prison awaiting trial, even for minor offences.

Oye said that the Prerogative of Mercy Committee, which was set up by the Federal Government, should regularly visit prisons across the country to address such cases.

“A lot of our inmates are writing their GCE (General Certification of Education) examinations.

“Some of them are students of the National Open University of Nigeria and they need scholarships to enable them  complete their studies,” he said.

Also speaking, Mr Tunde Ladipo, the Deputy Controller, Kirikiri Medium Security Prison, described the number of inmates released during the exercise as unprecedented.

Ladipo stressed that 2,370 out of the 2,502 inmates of the prison were awaiting trial, adding that the situation resulted in the prison’s congestion.

Sharing similar sentiments, Mr Ade Ipaye, Lagos State’s Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, said that the inmates’ release would effectively decongest the prisons.

“The release of the inmates sends a very strong signal not only on the capacity of the chief judge but also on the excellence which Lagos State is known for,’’ he said.

Ipaye noted that it was a common principle in law that “a man is presumed innocent until he is found guilty by a competent court of law”.

He, therefore, said that keeping people in detention for a long period without convicting them of any specific offence was barbaric; stressing that such practice should be abolished in the interest of justice.

All the same, Mr Adesina Adegbite, the General Secretary of the Ikeja branch of the Nigerian Bar Association, kicked against the release of the inmates.

He said that the government released the prisoners without carrying out a comprehensive data capture activity on them.

Adegbite stressed that the preparation of a computerised database of prisoners who were paroled was desirable as part of efforts to monitor the movement and activities of freed prisoners.

“These people have been released into the society and we have no way of checking their activities now.

“Some of them have nobody to turn to in the outside world and may, thus, be forced into criminal activities again,’’ he added.

Mr Ahmed Adetola-Kazeem, the Director, Prisoners’ Rights Advocacy Initiative (PRAI), shared a similar viewpoint, insisting that the state government ought to have captured the inmates’ data prior to their release.

“It would have been better if the Lagos State Government had made efforts to rehabilitate the released inmates for the next two months, at least, and resettle them properly.

“For most of them, the future is bleak. I hope and pray that in the coming months, Lagos State will not experience an unprecedented rise in armed robbery cases,’’ Adetola-Kazeem said.

Two prisoners, Williams Owode and Azubuike Ossai, who are serving life sentences at the maximum prison, said  that most of the released prisoners might soon return to the prison.

Owode, who has so far spent 18 years in prison for murder, noted that most of the released prisoners had not acquired sufficient skills to enable them to earn a living.

Ossai, who said that he had spent more than 10 years awaiting trial before his conviction for murder in June 2004, said: “We that have been here long enough to know that some of these people who are jubilating now will be back here in the next few months,” he said.

Ossai, nonetheless, conceded that some inmates of the prisons had been learning trades such as tailoring and shoe making.

“Some of us have even graduated from the university but nobody is looking into our cases,’’ he moaned.

Such cynical comments notwithstanding, the released prisoners were full of praises for the chief judge, expressing profound gratitude for their rescue from prison.

Betram Anwagu, 54, recalled that he was remanded in prison on July 20, 2005, after he was arrested over alleged armed robbery.

“I was selling provisions at the CMS area; one day, I fought with another trader and the police came to arrest us.

“The next day, they brought two other men to join us in the cell and later took all of us to court on robbery charges.

“That was how I found myself here and even the woman I was planning to marry has abandoned me,” he moaned.

Anwagu said that his major preoccupation now was how to survive in the society.

“When I was there (prison), I learnt how to make shoes. If I am able to raise some money, I will eke out a living as a shoe maker,” he said.

For 25-year-old Kehinde Arewa, who spent five years in the prison before his release, reuniting with his family in Ilesa, Osun State, was his top priority.

“I want to go and see my family because it has been a long time since I saw them last,” said Arewa, who claimed that he was a tailor before his arrest and incarceration over alleged robbery

Analysts believe that even though the prisoners’ release is commendable, governments, individuals, groups and corporate organisations should make concerted efforts to rehabilitate and resettle freed prisoners.

Such efforts would discourage the ex-prisoners from going into crime again, some say.

Asowata writes for NAN.

Solomon Asowata