Prison congestion is a social phenomenon that occurs when the demand for space in prisons in a jurisdiction exceeds the capacity for prisoners in that society or country. It arises where the number of inmates at a given period of time exceeds the actual capacity originally meant for that prison. Prison congestion or over-crowding is caused by a variety of factors such as increasing crime rates, harsher penalties for criminal activities, high recidivism, needed improvements to the penal system, backlogs and undue delays in the trials of criminal cases and unresolved civil disputes remain key problems in the justice sector and is one of the main causes of the very high number of awaiting trial detainees and invariably prison overcrowding in most prisons across the globe. Then there is also the non-duplication of case files by investigating Police Officers (IPO’s) and cases of police not bringing of suspects regularly for prosecutions or court trials are among these factors.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), as of February 2017, 72 per cent of inmates in Nigeria prison formations were awaiting trial persons. The menace of congestion in various prisons across the country has become worrisome and if not promptly looked into, it is capable of defeating the very purpose of establishing prisons in any society, principal among which is to serve as a reformative, rehabilitating , correctional and re-integration facility for the betterment of the inmates, the country and society at large and which can never be achieved under the present condition of our prisons across the country. The prolonged trials and overuse of imprisonment for minor offences have done more damage than good to all; they constitute a major threat to the welfare of the inmates and on the individual. Most minor offenders during the years or periods of awaiting trials and even after being tried and sentenced are locked up with hardened criminals who in turn influence them, making them become hardened thereby becoming terrors to the society at large after being released from prison.
Also, the attitude of the society and the stigma attached to a person who has committed a minor offence and has served a jail term could make him or her feel unwanted in the society leading to his desire to deliberately commit grievous offences that could send him or her back to prison. In order to reduce the rates at which most of our prisons are being congested and to achieve the primary purpose for which most of these corrective facilities were established for, I think it’s high time non – custodial measures such as adopting the “Community Servicing” as alternative to imprisonment for minor offences was adopted into the justice system as it has being in practiced in developed countries of the world. Neither the Criminal Code Act nor the Penal Code Act of Nigeria makes provision for community service as a form of punishment for minor offences and misdemeanor. But the spate at which our prisons are being congested with awaiting trial inmates makes the inclusion of community service in the laws governing crimes imperative. There are many instances whereby community service would be apt as an alternative to prison or jail term.
The term community service, on the surface, is free service or activity that is carried out by someone or a group of people as contribution for the benefit of the public or its institutions. This service can be voluntary in some cases while in others, are compelled by their government as part of citizenship requirements, in lieu of military service, the courts, etc. The legal definition of community service refers to “a sentencing option for persons convicted of crimes in which the court orders the defendant to perform a number of hours of unpaid work for the benefit of the public; a person convicted of a criminal offence may be required to complete a sentence of community service directly or as an express condition of probation.” Community service, as pronounced by the courts, is a form of punishment wherein the offender, usually in cases of minor offences and/ or a first timer is given a social responsibility in lieu of a jail term. This form of social responsibility ranges from an array of options such as sanitation wise, farming, cleaning public drainages, bush clearing, helping out in other Local Government functions amongst other activities. Furthermore, in adopting the community service for minor offences, people convicted of crimes would be required to perform certain services that would be beneficial to the society or to work for certain public agencies that need manpower for service delivery. A fine may be introduced in exchange for a prescribe numbers of hours of community service.
Community service is often used as an alternative to imprisonment, with the intent to connect offenders to the victims or society in order to make them realise how their actions affects others in the society. Community service in the criminal justice system started in 1966 as a way for offenders to work off traffic fines in California and as a result of the success of the program, community service became implemented in the United-States as a meaningful alternative to jail sentences. Adopting the community service into the criminal justice system at the three levels of government in Nigeria would help the overhauling of the criminal justice system and aid the fast-tracking of justice delivery while giving room for decongestion of our prisons. Furthermore, the benefit of adopting the community service into justice system both at the three tiers of Government is that it would reduce Government’s budget by saving the Government the high cost of maintaining prison inmates while such funds could be expended on other meaningful developmental projects in the country.
In addition, rather than imprisoning minor offenders and feeding them from the scarce resources of the Government, Internal Generated Revenue(IGR) can be generated through community servicing.
Credit: Funmilola Akinpelu, Nigerian Tribune