Impediments to the Realization of International Best Practice in Nigerian Custodial Service

Abstract

The network of the criminal justice system is tripodial in nature. The law enforcement agencies kick-start the process and at the end of their investigations releases the suspect into the second stream which is the court. The court takes the defendant(s) through the processes of adjudication and when it finds the defendant not guilty as charged, the defendant is discharged and that ends the chain. However, if on the other hand, the court founds the defendant guilty as charged he/she is taken into the third realm of the criminal justice sector which is the prisons (other terms for a prison include remand centre, custodial service, correctional facility, detention centre, jail/goal, penal colony, penitentiary). Nigerian Custodial Service ideally is established to keep in safe custody of persons legally interred, identify causes of their inherent anti-social behaviours, treat and reform them to become law abiding citizens of a free society, train them towards their rehabilitation and reintegration into the society free from crime after release. However, it is observed with dismay that the service has failed to fulfill its national and international obligations. This is obvious judging from the number of inmates that go in and out of the system, and the rate of recidivism amongst the Nigerian inmates also reveals beyond conjecture that the system has not lived up to its expectation nationally and internationally in treatment of the anti-social behaviour of her inmates despite its avowed claim that it is correctional. It was found that several factors contributed to the inability of the prisons to run on international best practice, and they include among others; Congestion, Practice of Holding charge, Lack of Accommodation Facilities, Poor Funding, Lack of Basic Human Needs, Prisoners' Rights systematically flouted, Jail-Breaks, Recidivism/After Release Care, and Lack of Political Will to implement the provisions of the law and recommendations on reforms. In this wise, it is recommended as follows: deregulation of the management of the prisons to incorporate public-private partnership in the funding and management of the system, utilization of non-custodial sentences, construction of state of art facilities, among others.