How restorative justice system will decongest courts, prisons

Earlier this month, a magistrate’s court in Gombe State sentenced a level II student of the state’s university to two years imprisonment for burgling the house of his neighbour and stealing three caps valued at N7,000. Around the same period, another magistrate’s court in Zaria, Kaduna State sentenced a 21-year-old man, Alhassan Ashiru to five […]

Earlier this month, a magistrate’s court in Gombe State sentenced a level II student of the state’s university to two years imprisonment for burgling the house of his neighbour and stealing three caps valued at N7,000.

Around the same period, another magistrate’s court in Zaria, Kaduna State sentenced a 21-year-old man, Alhassan Ashiru to five years’ imprisonment for the theft of power supply equipment. The court however gave him an option of fine of N150,000. The sentencing came after the court was told that the convict had confessed to committing the crime and that the police had since recovered the stolen items.

During a recent tour of prisons in the FCT with the National Stakeholders Committee on Prisons Reform and Decongestion, it was observed that many of the convicts have similar stories with Ashiru. Most of the prisoners are in prisons for inability to pay fines as little as N5,000 after the court found them guilty. These prisoners are not only being taken care of with taxpayer’s money; most of them become harden criminals by the time they eventually leave the prisons.

Daily Trust reports that a robbery suspect arrested by the police in Katsina explained how he was initiated into robbery by other convicted armed robbers during his recent incarceration for lighter offence. Speaking with newsmen during his parade, Shamsudeen Dahiru said one Hussaini Boda who is presently serving his jail term in Kaduna introduced him to robbery.

“Prior to my meeting with him, I only broke into houses and did little thefts but after my stay with Boda in Kaduna prisons, I moved to armed robbery in full; I began to steal motorcycles using guns,” he said. 

The Chief Judge of the FCT High Court, Justice Ishaq Bello, who doubles as the chairman of the prison decongestion committee, observed that the rate at which prisoners ended up returning to prisons when released is worrisome.

Criminal justice scholars that have been advocating the adoption of restorative justice system are of the opinion that restorative justice programmes when properly instituted and managed will address all the bottlenecks in the extant criminal justice system of Nigeria which they said is retributive. They said this retributive system emphasizes that the best response to a crime is a punishment proportional to the offense because the offender deserves the punishment.

For these scholars, the three big ideas of an effective justice system should be repair, encounter and transformation. For repair, they said crime causes harm and justice requires repairing that harm; and for encounter, the best way to go about repairing is to have the parties decide together; and the end product which is transformation can cause fundamental changes in people, relationships and communities.

A research paper presented by Daniel W. Van Ness of the Centre for Justice and Reconciliation at Prison Fellowship International, Washington, said, “Well over 80 countries use some form of restorative practice in addressing crime; the actual number could be closer to 100. While in many of these countries, restorative programmes are experimental and localized, in an increasing number of others restorative policies and programmes play a significant part in the national response to crime.”

The researcher said across the word, restorative interventions are being used by police, prosecutors, judges, prison officials and probation and parole authorities. These interventions have developed somewhat differently from region to region, but in many cases, countries have found it useful to adopt appropriate legislation.

One of the proponents of this movement in Nigeria, Barrister Benson Iwuagwu who is the Coordinator of Lagos Restorative Justice Pilot Project told Daily Trust that the essence of instituting restorative justice system in Nigeria goes beyond decongesting the prisons to freeing the clustered dockets of the courts.

He said both the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) and the Lagos state’s Administration of Criminal Justice Law (ACJL) made admissions to restorative justice. He said ACJL made provisions for restorative outcomes upon which their advocacy has been premised but added that there is a distinction between these outcomes and restorative justice as a system of adjudication.

“We carried out a six-week survey of the magistrate courts and we discovered that the restorative principle is something that is already working. However, judicial officers do not have the requisite authority in terms of practice directions and guidelines to implement restorative justice and that is what we have tried to do. Lagos State Ministry of Justice has allocated a place for the flagging off of the Lagos State Restorative Justice Centre; this shows the practicality of this advocacy,” he said.

However, a professor of public law and president of the Center for Socio-Legal Studies (CSLS), Yemi Akinseye-George said the justice system in Lagos State is in decline at the moment.

“There is excessive use of imprisonment. The mobile courts are sending too many people, especially jobless youths to prison. The most congested prisons in Nigeria are the ones in Lagos. It is a welcome idea that the state is considering introducing restorative justice measures. That must address the problems created by the mobile courts,” he said.

He said restorative justice should be integrated across the country with the legal justice system as a complementary process of improving the quality, effectiveness and efficiency of justice as a whole. He added that all first-time offenders who commit minor offences should be diverted to the restorative justice mechanisms.

“But how do we ascertain first time offenders when we do not have reliable data. That’s why the ACJA provides for collection of data on arrested persons. With such data we will know those who should go to prison and those who should not.”

 Professor Akinseye-George, however, agreed that there is no comprehensive legislation on restorative justice systems in Nigeria. However, he said, there are provisions scattered in various legislations which can be used as a starting point to implement restorative justice measures. 

“These include the ACJA which provides for plea bargaining, suspended sentence, community service, probation, compensation, rehabilitation and treatment of offenders.”

“Most importantly, those convicted of minor offences should not be sent to prisons where the state will incur additional costs in feeding, protecting and housing them. They should be made to work and provide services to the community. That’s better than just locking them up and feeding them,” he said.