The Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, has said that the Federal Government is intensifying efforts towards amending the Federal Correctional Services Act.
He stated this while defending the ministry’s 2022 budget proposal of over N11 billion, before the Senate Committee on Judiciary Human Rights and Legal Matters on Monday in Abuja.
The minister was also responding to a question by a member of the committee, Sen. Chukwuka Utazi (PDP-Enugu) on Justice Sector Reform and decongestion of correctional service centres.
Earlier, Utazi had queried the level of ration inmates receive per individual which he described as insufficient.
“We have been considering that issue overtime; an inmate should be handled as a human being if we actually intend they join the society as sane people, as reformed people.
“We know what happens in some places; they even enroll and get degrees in the universities and by the time they are coming, they are properly reformed and join the society.
“We can do something that can be proper for our people,” Utazi said.
In his response, Malami said that “we are making necessary arrangements into the Correctional Service Act.
“I agree with the senator that there are certain needs for further amendments to the act for the purpose of enhancing the services as it relates to transformation of the correctional service inmates.
“What we do in terms of transformation of the correctional service in its own rights and the services to be deployed for the purpose of bringing the necessary reforms in attitude and character of the inmates, is a function of law.
“When we came over to the National Assembly for the purpose of amending the Prison Service Act which later came to be known as the Correctional Service Act, the major menace and the mischief that we were targeting to address then were the unprecedented congestion in prison formations.
“With that, we have brought in a lot of amendments among which was giving discretion to the commandants of the prison service to reject inmates when the capacity is over-stretched, which discretion was never there before.
Other amendment to the act, he said was “bringing onboard non-custodial sentences among others, which had eventually as at today, nobody is complaining about decongestion in the correctional centres.
“That is why we are no longer hearing of awaiting trial inmates. I’m happy, we are now progressing from the congestion as an issue, as a challenge to considering the possibility of having some additional considerations by relating to attitudinal change and making the inmates more useful.”
He noted that government had put in place an entrepreneurial skill acquisition centre in Keffi, Nasarawa State for inmates’ vocational and educational pursuits.
“There are other centres where we are promoting the educational pursuits of the inmates. We have a record of someone who has graduated as a PhD holder arising from such encouragement in correctional centres,” Malami said.(NAN)
