HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES IN NIGERIAN CORRECTIONAL CENTRES: AN APPRAISAL OF THE NIGERIAN CORRECTIONAL SERVICES ACT, 2019

Abstract

Fundamental human rights are inalienable and jealously guarded by several statutes across the globe and in Nigeria for the protection of all persons, particularly with regards to persons held in lawful custody for various offences. As civilization developed, prisons morphed into correctional facilities created to reform and rehabilitate persons who have committed crimes against the state. In Nigeria, a lot of efforts have gone into providing effective legislations and reforms to ensure compliance with international human rights standards and good correctional practices. The objective of this work is to examine the extent of human rights abuses in correctional centres in Nigeria and the impact of the new legislative regime in stemming this tide. The relevant Acts like the Nigerian Correctional Service Act, the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, and the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) which govern the administration of our correctional service system and guarantee the human rights for all persons, are properly examined in this work. The Nigerian correctional centers have been reputed to be dehumanizing and punitive as opposed to being corrective. The numerous issues confronting these centres border on lack security of lives, congestion, inhumane and degrading treatment, lack of safe custody, sexual abuse of female inmates, unhygienic and tatterdemalion prison environment resulting in the spread of diseases and many health scares. These issues have resulted in making the correctional institution incapable of refining inmates and a constant violation of their human rights. Consequently, this work made recommendations to aid in minimizing further violations of inmates’ human rights and to ensure that they are subjected to dignifying humane conditions while incarcerated, such as constant training of correctional facility staff, implementation of the provisions of the law to ensure a reduction in the number of inmates and building and maintenance of correctional facilities.