Gobir Habeeb Bolaji Writes
For time immemorial, imprisonment of convict is one of the focal part of punishing the convict particularly on major offenses.This is predicated on the fact that among the essence of punishing offender is to reform them back to a law abiding citizen by way of reforming them. However, in our contemporary word of today, can we really say prison is actually serving it function of reforming offenders?
Let start from the environment of our prison in Nigeria. It wear a pitiable look in my eyes the day I had the privilege to visit some of the prisons in Kwara State most especially that of Mandala prison yard. The environment where prisoners are being kept will not even be fair to goat and pigs if they are kept there, talk more of a human being. Is it the discolored nature of the environment or the bad odour emitting out of the cell where prisoners are sleeping.
Multitudes of inmates are kept inside a single room without a sleeping mattress. The bitter factor regarding this issue is that inmates are not provided with separate toilet where they can easily excrete their waste product. A small hole leading to the backyard was dig inside the cell and which serve as a place where inmate defecate and urinate.
Similarly, it is arguable that one of the reasons for imprisoning offender is to distance them from the public by way of protecting the public against any other imminent attach which might arise if offenders are kept at a close range with the public. But the question is, are they really protecting the public from being attack again by this offender?
The answer would have been in the affirmative if inmates are being treated with kindness while they are in prison. It would have been suitable if the prison can incorporated into them, the spirit of brotherhood and how they ought to behave upon their release.
Perhaps, we are putting people in prison, many times, for non-violent crimes and turning them out more violent and dangerous than when they went in. The violence that is coming out of these prisons is a much greater threat than terrorism.
Prisoners will answer with violence for the violence that has been perpetrated against them in prison. I don't feel that, I know that. When you talk about reform, you talk about transforming prisoners' lives in a positive way. But those prisons offer an environment for that type of transformation.
What our entire prison does, is to punish inmates and return them to our society worse than when we take them off. By the virtue of this, are we really safe? I think the goal of prisons should be ultimately to help turn inmate lives around -- but we are not treating our prisoners that way right now. They are imprisoned in a mass delusion, which in the long run punishes society far more than society could ever punish a convicted criminal.
What I would say is that the environment of a prison should model in every way how we want prisoners to behave upon their release. So what do we want them to do when they get out of prison? We'd like them to have respect and compassion for others and respect for the law. That means that while they are a prisoner, they have to receive respect and the prison has to be law-abiding.
Maltreating our prisoners will not in any way help to neither transform the live of the prisoner nor will it liberate the society from being victims of attack. All prisoners are entitled to programs aimed at reform. This should be the sole aim of prison in other to have a better and sustainable society.
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