‘Prison, court congestions are systemic’

Do we need more prisons? We do not need more prisons because if we build more prisons, of course we will fill them up, once the basic criminal jurisprudence has not been addressed.  Despite the present congestion in prisons? They are congested because people who should not be there are there. So, what we should […]

Do we need more prisons?

We do not need more prisons because if we build more prisons, of course we will fill them up, once the basic criminal jurisprudence has not been addressed. 

Despite the present congestion in prisons?

They are congested because people who should not be there are there. So, what we should rather look at is a system of justice that does not necessarily clamp every person into the prison either as an awaiting trial inmate or a convict.

Prison congestion has always been with us, can it be solved by throwing money at the problem?

Throwing money at it would not solve the problem because prison and court congestion are systemic. They result from the nature of our criminal justice jurisprudence and system. The system is one that focuses on law and order; that is macro justice.

The whole system is focused towards maintaining the king’s peace. So, we have the police, the prisons and the courts. The parties are – state vs offender. But parties affected in the commission of crime are much more than the offender and the state. Which I regard as mythical if we go back to social contract. 

The issue of congestion is because our criminal jurisprudence is retributive and based on deterrence and capacitation. That informs the attitude of the courts and the attitude of the police. Once you are arrested, except somehow you get out at the police station, the suspect is charged to court, and once in court, he is either sent to the prison on remand or sent to jail after conviction. So, you find out that our system is too adversarial; it is meant to catch them, keep them so as to deter others. So, until we are able to look at fundamentals, congestion will remain because that is the nature of the criminal justice system we operate. Money cannot solve it, but a total review of the fundamental principles of our criminal justice system.  

What are retributive justice and restorative justice? 

Retributive principle of justice says “an eye for an eye” and that is what we are operating. That is why crime is escalating and prison population is growing, even though it has been argued that Nigeria is under-prisoned with a population of 170 million, that we should have more people in prison. So retributive looks at inflicting pain as a deterrence, and in doing this, it does not ask questions as to what led the offender into committing the crime. Because there are predisposing and causative factors in crime commission.  Retributive and deterrence jurisprudence do not look at this. But restorative justice is a much more holistic system of justice that addresses not just the law and order needs of the state and society, but essentially of the offender and the victim. So, a prominent distinction between the two is that while retributive justice looks at crime as an infraction of the law, restorative justice looks at crime as a disruption, infraction of relationships and persons.

What is your take on the environmental taskforce and the mobile court in Lagos in which hawkers are put on trial?

The kind of people that are caught and thrown into prison by the taskforce should not be in the prison. 

You said “the kind of people”, are they not human beings? 

What I mean is that these are people who try to eke out a living. This is not endorsing street trading, but these are citizens and that they are poor today does not mean that they are not full-fledged citizens. There are better ways of social control rather than grabbing them and once they cannot bail themselves, are thrown into prisons. We operate a federal prison, where the states are not involved in its management and funding, so it is easy for the states to get suspects and throw them in prisons. If they were paying the bills, they would have thought otherwise. The task force is not looking at the socio- economic circumstance, rather it has been turned to a source of revenue generation for the state government. Recently a member church of PFN came to pay fines for about 22 inmates thrown into prison by the taskforce over environmental offences bordering on hawking. Then something funny happened because by the time we got to the prison, another group had paid for the same inmates PFN had paid fine for. We went back to the court so as to have the funds used for other inmates, but it became an issue into whose accounts the fines were paid. It is an untidy situation; these inmates can be sent to farm settlements or given other punishments, but definitely, not prisons where they will be corrupted.

Does it mean that first time offenders cannot be put into prison? 

It will be a bad policy to put first time offenders into prison, because by the time you throw first time offenders into a prison that houses hardened criminals, they will only go there and be contaminated and criminally socialised, given the condition of our prisons. 

 Would you say that the criminal justice in the country is declining? 

I would rather say that the criminal justice system in Nigeria is struggling. For instance, how should we treat first offenders? But the good thing is that Lagos is taking steps. We now have a steering committee working on restorative justice in Lagos State. There should be a pre-trial diversion process because once arraigned in court the stigma has started. There should be restorative justice which is in consonance with the African justice system, by getting the parties together and resolving. This can work at the police station, where the victims and offenders meet, as was done in the traditional African society.

Restorative justice is humane and makes less use of custodial justice and it promotes a better sense of justice because the offender is given an opportunity to take responsibility for what he has done and the victim has a sense of participation that his grievances are being addressed. But what we have presently is “Commissioner of Police vs Offender.”