Research
Custodial Rehabilitation and Public Security in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic
The study examines the functionality of custodial rehabilitation as a means of improving public security in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic. A qualitative exploratory approach was employed during the research, and data was collected from seven correctional facilities, six selected from each of the six geopolitical zones in the country. In contrast, the seventh facility, Agodi Correctional Center was purposely selected to complement information from the other selected facilities. The study population included correctional officers, inmates, exinmates, and non-governmental organizations. Data collected were descriptively analyzed using thematic and content analysis. The study identified incongruence between rehabilitation programmes and services on the one hand, and offenses committed by the inmates and other risk factors on the other as the main cause of the poor performance of the rehabilitation mandate of the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCS) and by extension, the raging crisis of insecurity in the country. Lack of attention on behavior modifying services, and poor socio-economic conditions in the country are also identified as factors militating against effective inmate rehabilitation and re-integration. For the possible improvement of rehabilitation programmes of the NCS and public security in Nigeria, the study advocates assignment of rehabilitation programmes and services to inmates based on the offenses committed, recruitment of more professionals, better focus on behavior modifying programmes for the inmates, and enhancement of the participation of non-governmental organizations in the provision of support services in the correctional centers.
National Security Imperatives: Focus on the Role of Nigerian Prisons Service and Management of Violent Extremist Offenders
This paper examines Nigeria's national security imperatives with a focus on the role of the country's correctional service in the management of Violent Extremist Offenders(VEOs).It draws its data from primary and secondary sources. Doing this, it adopts the interpretative framework of analysis. Management of violent extremism in Nigeria is shown to be based on the eclectic approach involving religious leaders, the National Orientation Agency, and the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCS) under the supervision of the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA). The study reveals that the de-radicalization programme being handled by the correctional service lacks post-release component, identified in the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Offenders as a significant element of inmates’ reintegration. Detention and treatment of violent extremist offenders by the Nigerian army also inhibit effective rehabilitation of this category of offenders because such activity is not core to the mandate of the army. The paper concludes that the quest to ensure Nigeria’s national security through de-radicalization programmes in the correctional centers may remain a mirage unless the post-release service is extended to the VEOs. Equally, mitigation of challenges inhibiting the rehabilitative function of the NCS, such as corruption, prison congestion, and inhuman treatment of inmates,are considered by this paper as a preconditions for the achievement of the deradicalization objective of the correctional service. Adherence to relevant instruments for the treatment of VEOs,
Islam and Inmate Rehabilitation in Nigerian Correctional Service
The role of religious activities in the social reformation and rehabilitation of prison inmates cannot be over-emphasized. Religious groups have been long recognized as important force in the process that led to the preeminence of corrections in offender management. Punishment in human societies was replete with all form of wickedness until the birth of the modern prison system between 18 and 19th century. According to Foucault (1995) before the birth of the modern prison system, punishment was a public spectacle in which the body of the felon was the object of punishment; offenders were tortured, dismembered, amputated, symbolically branded on face or shoulder, exposed alive or dead to public view. Although modern prison system started essentially as a punitive institution, influence of intellectuals such as Beccaria 1819, Bentham 1843, Foucault 1995 etc. and numerous non-governmental organizations (faith, and non-faith based) constitute the critical mass that drove the idea of rehabilitation into the prison system. Consequently, prisons now have to function essentially as a normalizing and persuasive institution of the state albeit it’s coercive nature.
