Prisons in need of structural correction

NO prison is too secure to breach. However, when the breaches are frequent, it indicates there are many things wrong and that the prison system needs an urgent overhaul. Such is the case with Nigeria’s prisons. It must change.

In the past decade, 20 jailbreaks have occurred in the country, eight of them between 2021 and 2022 alone with over 4,000 inmates escaping. A tally by Sunday PUNCH recorded the escape of 6,675 inmates in 13 jailbreaks in the past five years. Out of those who escaped, 4,643 or 69.5 per cent are still at large. This is troubling.

In August 2019, the then-President, Muhammadu Buhari, signed the Nigerian Correctional Service Act, effecting a minor nomenclature change by replacing the word ‘prisons’ with ‘correctional.’ Thus, the Nigerian Prisons Service became the NCoS.

It was perhaps a move to launder the image of the notoriously crowded and punitive prisons and project an institution that prioritises care and correction over punishment. Some inmates have indeed been sitting School Certificate examinations and degree programmes from within the prison walls but many ills still plague the custodial centres.

In April 2021, 1,844 inmates escaped from the Owerri prisons following an armed attack by non-state actors. In September, 280 inmates fled the Maiduguri custodial centre after floodwaters pulled down a section of the walls. Jailbreaks have occurred in Agbor, Delta State, and Koton Karfe, Kogi State, where prison walls collapsed after downpours.

This suggests that the authorities cannot keep convicts and awaiting-trial inmates in custody until they serve their time or their cases are decided in court. It is proof that most of the prisons built in the colonial era have become too old and cannot stand any significant pressure.

Most distressingly, criminals, rather than serving their time, are finding their way back into society to foment more trouble. In the Maiduguri jailbreak, a good number of the escapees were said to be members of Boko Haram, the terror group behind years of unconscionable bloodletting and abductions.

The fact that convicts are frequently fleeing from custody means they are escaping justice. This defeats the very idea of prisons, which is to keep criminals out of the public space by curbing some of their freedoms and liberties to serve as punishment.

The NCoS says 57,288 of the 84,283 inmates across the 244 correctional centres are awaiting trial. This is disturbing.

So, speeding up the country’s criminal justice system might help. Many suspects awaiting trial are known to spend years without being taken to court. In many cases, they have spent more years awaiting trial than their prison terms had they been convicted and sentenced. Indeed, not every offender should go to prison; minor ones should do community work.

In June, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, the Minister of Interior, announced a plan to audit the prisons and conduct a head count of inmates as a first step towards depopulating the crowded cells. It is a good idea, but more work needs to be done on it.

Better policing and more crime detection and prevention are needed to avoid sending more people to jail. In the face of the country’s fast-growing population and governance challenges, more crimes are bound to be committed despite the best efforts of the security agencies. And since the cry for state police is getting more strident, prisons should be removed from the Exclusive Legislative List.

Some countries have private prisons; Nigeria too can consider this under strict government supervision.

Looking after criminals is no mean business: adequate and incentivised personnel should be provided and their environment protected from attacks. The NCoS should leverage technology, deploying CCTV cameras and drones to keep track of its charges.