By Adebayo Gbeja
The Nigerian Correctional Services (NCoS) says the adoption of non-custodial sentencing will help decongest custodial centers and enhance inmates’ rehabilitation across the country.
NCoS Public Relations Officer in FCT, DSC Duza Adamu, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Abuja, on Thursday.
Adamu said that as a service, the command was specifically carrying out massive sensitisation on the adoption of non-custodial sentencing in the FCT.
According to him, when a judge adopts the non-custodial sentencing, it limits or reduces the number of inmates who will go into the facility, or the custodial centres.
”The non-custodial service is all about alternative to imprisonment. And so, when there are cases that do not require incarceration, we advise that those cases are better handled at the non-custodial service level.”
He explained that the alternative also prioritised offender rehabilitation for minors, community service, probation, fines, suspended sentence, parole, plea bargaining, compensation and restitution for first-time offences.
Adamu added that the agency also embarked on advocacy visits to the chief judge of the FCT occasionally, with a view to encourage periodic visits to correctional centres for jail delivery exercise.
He explained that the jail delivery exercise entailed the judge visiting the custodial centres to review the cases of awaiting-trial inmates, and free those who do not have any business being in prison.
”The chief judge of the FCT has been coming, periodically, to our centres, to see how they can release those who don’t have business being in the custodial centres. This is also part of the efforts to decongest our facilities,” he said.
The NCoS FCT public relations officer further said that the agency was also committed to classifying inmates in the custodial centres through systematic assessment into specific custody or supervision levels.
”When inmates are properly classified to the appropriate correctional resources that matches individual risks, behavioral patterns, and personal needs, it promotes institutional safety, tailored rehabilitation plans, and aids decongestion.
”In the FCT, we have a facility called Custodial Model Farm Centre, Dupka, in Gwagwalada, for inmates who have less time to stay, say between one month and a year.
”They are sent there, for proper management and rehabilitation. They engage in different kinds of activities, such as vocational skills, education, and farm activities to empower them upon discharge.
”However it is still beyond the control of NCoS to fully decongest the facility due to increase in crime on a daily basis, but the agency will continue to do its best to ensure that prisons are not over congested,” Adamu said.
He noted that anyone caught for crime ought to be dealt with according to the law, adding that in view of this number of inmates kept increasing.(NAN)(www.nannews.ng)
Edited by Deborah Coker
