Lagos State is currently leading in prison congestion among states in the country, with a total of 7,396 out of the national total of 68,686.
\nThe prison has a capacity for 3,927 prisoners, indicating that it is almost 100 per cent over-filled, a trend that President Muhammadu Buhari has called a national scandal.
\nAccording to a new data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, yesterday, Lagos is closely followed by Kano and Rivers States with 4,424 and 4,183 prison inmates\u2019 population respectively.
\nKano can conveniently accommodate just 2,116 prisoners.
\nRivers State has one of the worst prisoner congestion ratio as it can take only 1,354, compared to the 4,183 prisoners it accommodates at present.
\nBayelsa and Ekiti States have the lowest number of prisoners, with 444 and 585 as at last year.
\nEven then the two states also failed to reduce the trend as their cells can accommodate only 200 and 400 prisoners.
\nThe NBS\u2019s prison statistics catalogued prison population by Total detainees, prison capacity and number of un-sentenced detainees by state and Year and Prison Inmate Population by Gender from 2011 to 2016.
\nThe study showed a rise in prison population from 65,030 in 2015 to 68,686 last year.
\nIt also showed a rise in over-population of the prisons.
\nIn 2015, the prisons capacity was 49,965.
\nBut the prisoners were 65,033.
\nIn 2016, the capacity rose to 50,803, as the inmates also increased to 68,686.
\nMore revealing is the gender skewness of the population: there are far more men in prisons than women. While male inmates last year were 67,329, the women were 1,357.
\nThe gender ratio in 2015 was similar, 63,668 to 1,357.
\nIn terms of the beliefs of the inmates, there were more Muslims kept in jail between 2015 and 2016, more than Christians.
\nNBS data shows that 59,940 Christians were incarcerated in the two year period, in contrast with 71,402 Muslims. The number of traditionalists, atheists and others was 11,506.
\nOn 6th October, President Muhammadu Buhari expressed concern over the state of the nation\u2019s prisons, noting that it is a national scandal that many prisons are overcrowded by 90 per cent.
\nHe spoke when he hosted a delegation of the judicial arm of government led by the Chief Justice of the Federation, Justice Walter Onnoghen, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
\n\u201cWe need a new approach to prison congestion. It is a national scandal that many prisons are overcrowded by 90 per cent,\u201d he said.
\nHe stressed the need to put in place urgent new measures to speedily decongest the prisons across the country.
\nHe stated that the call had become imperative not only in the interest of justice but to save the cost of prisons\u2019 maintenance and boost the welfare of prisoners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lagos State is currently leading in prison congestion among states in the country, with a total of 7,396 out of the national total of 68,686. The prison has a capacity for 3,927 prisoners, indicating that it is almost 100 per cent over-filled, a trend that President Muhammadu Buhari has called a national scandal. According to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-163469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=163469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163469\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=163469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=163469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=163469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}