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Declining Prison Facilities As Impediment To The Rehabilitation Of Offenders
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CHAPTER ONE
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
1.0INTRODUCTION
Since
the inception of the modern criminal justice system, a persistent
response to the question of what to do with offenders has been to
rehabilitate them in the mainstream of social life (Paranjape, 2011:
463). Prisons are usually structured to identify the peculiar problems
of each inmate and device means of guiding him or her out of the
problem. Although prisons are considered as the most widely used
institutions of correctional administration but their role has been a
subject of severe criticism and scrutiny from the point of view of
rehabilitation of prisoners (or offenders) (Ugwuoke, 2010 and Paranjape,
2011). An observation of the population that goes in and out of the
prisons shows that there are some problems in the system; hence, the
prison system has not been able to achieve the ultimate goal of
rehabilitation.
More than half of a century ago, Gresham Sykes wrote
that “life in the maximum security prison is depriving or frustrating in
the extreme†(Sykes, 1958:63), and little has changed to alter that
view. Indeed, sykes’s observation is perhaps more meaningful now than he
first made it, because prison facilities in many parts of the world are
in poor condition (Cavadini and Dignan 2002; 2006; 2007/13). The
disrepair is such that even in European countries, where prisons are
generally considered good, prisoners are ‘simmering on the point of riot
or rebellion’ (Cavadino and Dignan 2006: 43). The discontent is not
only with their fellow inmates, but also with prison staff, who are
often demoralized, disaffected and restless (Cavadino and Dignan 2006). A
prison is not expected to be exactly a bed of roses (as the inmates are
there for penal purposes), neither is it supposed to be a bed of thorns
and thistles meant to snuff life out of the occupants.Edwin James wrote
that “prison experience for the inmates in the main consists of
enforced idleness and an obligation to conform to behaviour which
primarily is aimed at maintaining the smooth operation of the
institution and less about assisting offenders with their problems, or
helping them to desist from crime (James, 2006: 19-27). This may have
prompted scholars such as Edgar et al. (2011: 3) to argue that “prisons
conspire to create model inmates rather than model citizensâ€.
Whilst
Prison facilities in Africa are moving toward behaviour change
approaches for inmate rehabilitation in the same way as their European
counterpart, the degree of success in their implementation is however
inadequate (Tenibiaje, 2010 and Ijaiya, 2009). Although prisons are
supposed to be places for transformation and rehabilitation, scholars
have adjudged Nigerian prisons a school of crime (Obioha, 1995; Adetula
et al., 2010; Tanimu, 2010; Tenibiaje, 2010). Dambazau (2007: 210) has
proposed that inmates left unoccupied with positive and constructive
activities are likely to engage in vices, such as sale and use of drugs.
Despite the fact that approximately half of inmates go on to re-offend
when released from prison (Prison Reform Trust, 2011: 26) as a growing
body of evidence has suggested (Soyombo, 2009; Wilson, 2009; Ministry of
Justice, 2010; National Bureau of Statistics, 2010 and Abrifor et al.
2010), much of what is done within prisons is not based on sound
evidence but, rather, on custom, bureaucratic convenience, and political
ideology (James 2006; Lipsey and Cullen, 2007: 3).
The recurring
relationship between imprisonment, release and recidivism has ensured
that policy makers have given this subject considerable attention over
the past two decades in particular. “[N]early three in five prisoners
are re-convicted within two years of leaving prison†(Rt. Hon. Tony
Blair MP, ‘foreword’ to McEvoy, 2008: 4). Of the offenders released in
2004 in Britain, 58% were convicted of another crime within two years
(Home Office 2007: 1). In 2009, 90% of the adults receiving a custodial
sentence in the United Kingdom had previously been convicted on at least
one prior occasion. According to the Ministry of Justice’s November
2010 Compendium of Reoffending Statistics, 20% of the offenders who were
discharged from custody between January and March 2000 had been
reconvicted within three months (Ministry of Justice, 2010). This figure
rose to 43% after a year, 55% after 2 years and 68% after 5 years. By
2009, 74% of the initial cohort had been reconvicted (Ministry of
Justice, 2010).
An assessment carried out in 2010 by the Director of
National Intelligence on former Guantanamo Bay detainees indicated that
an estimated 20% of them had re-engaged in criminal activities (Director
of National Intelligence, 2010).
Soyombo (2009) reported that the
rate of occurrence of criminal recidivism in Nigeria in 2005 was 37.3%.
Also, Abrifor et al. (2010) estimated the prevalence of recidivism in
Nigerian prisons at 52.4% in 2010. Since then, there has not been any
indication that the trend has declined. A report on trend and pattern of
recidivism shows that 81% of male criminal inmate offenders and 45% of
female criminal inmate offenders were re-arrested within 36 months of
discharge/release from the prison custody (Wilson, 2009 and Abrifor et
al., 2010).
The figures are even more startling when one considers
that young male offender within the age groups of 18 to 20 years in
England and Wales were reconvicted at a rate of 64% over the same period
(Home Office, 2007: 6). While the reconviction rates in Northern
Ireland are only slightly lower for adults (46% within two years), the
figure for young offenders (74% within two years) underlines the deeply
rooted nature of the problem of recidivism (NIPS/NIPB Resettlement
Strategy, 2003: 5, cited in McEvoy, 2008: 4).
A study on the
offender’ educational experience and learning needs showed that in the
prison population, a lack of basic skills is common: 48% of prisoners
have a reading age at or below the level of an 11 year old (this
increases to 65% for numeracy and 82% for writing skills), half of all
prisoners do not have the skills required by 96% of jobs and only 1 in 5
can complete an application form (Prison Reform Trust, 2009). In 2005,
the Department for Education and Skills reported that 52% of male
prisoners and 71% of female prisoners had no qualifications at all
(Department for Education and Skills, 2005). The lack of qualifications
and difficulties with communication are parts of the explanation of high
levels of offender unemployment – 13 times higher for offenders than in
the general population. Furthermore, studies have reiterated that the
majority of prisoners worldwide come from economically and socially
disadvantaged backgrounds. Poverty, unemployment, lack of housing,
broken families, histories of psychological problems and mental illness,
drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence are realities that are likely
to be found in most offenders’ lives (Belenko, 2002; James and Kenneth,
2004; Zhang, 2004; United Nations, 2006; Przybylski, 2008; Reichert,
2010; Chaturvedi, 2006, cited in Paranjape, 2011, and Pettit, 2012).
According to Hawley et al. (2013: 5), among the 640,000 prison
population in the E.U., there are a significant proportion of
low-skilled Europeans. “Even though there are no exact data on the
qualification levels of prisoners, it has been estimated that only three
to five per cent (3 to 5%) of them would be qualified to undertake
higher education, and in many countries there is a high instance of
early school leaving among prisoners†(Hawley et al., 2013).
Tanimu
(2010) has found that a typical convict in Nigerian Prison is a
semi-literate male in the prime of his youth (18-29 years). He is most
likely convicted for committing property-related crime. Occupationally,
he is either unemployed or self-employed in the lowest occupational
ladder.
The reasons given for re-offending are many, but as suggested
in the following quote, vocational education, training and employment
are internationally identified as pathways out of the recidivistic life
of crime: “While many factors contribute to re-offending, offenders and
ex-offenders tend to have skills levels well below those of the general
population, and are much more likely to be unemployed†(Department for
Education and Skills, 2005: 6), yet sustained employment is a key to
leading a crime-free life. Low levels of qualifications have important
negative effects on prisoners' employment prospects upon release, which
has been found to be one of the key factors influencing whether or not
ex-convicts re-offend. Thus, the provision of basic skills education,
and particularly, vocational training, in prisons has an important role
to play in the reintegration process of prisoners. However, as noted by
the European prison rules, it is important to provide educational
opportunities, which meet the needs of individual prisoners. This
includes providing education and training also for those who have higher
prior educational attainment (Hawley et al., 2013).
Maxfield and
Babbie (2008: 122) define recidivism as the re-occurrence of criminal
behaviour. According to Scott and Marshall (2005: 552), recidivism is
the conviction of crime on more than one occasion; thus, a recidivist is
a person who re-offends (Scott and Marshall, 2005: 552). According to
Maxfield and Babbie (2008), the rate of recidivism should be calculated
by counting the number of prison release or by counting the numbers of
offenders placed under community supervision who are re-incarcerated for
technical violation or new offence within a uniform period of at-risk
street time. According to Scott and Marshall (2005: 552), recidivism is
measured in relation to the type of last sentence or last offence, as
percentages re-offending, or re-convicted.
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ABSRACT - [ Total Page(s): 1 ]The study was designed to establish whether declining prison facilities interfered with the rehabilitation of offenders in Ikoyi prison, Lagos State, Nigeria. An approach drawing from both quantitative and qualitative methodologies was adopted. A cross-sectional survey and in-depth interview of prisoners enabled the exploration of specific objectives formulated around the purpose of the study, which included the need to know how ‘needs assessment and classification of offenders correlated ... Continue reading---
