Yours sincerely saw first hand why it is necessary that state governments should establish rehabilitation centers as part of our criminal punishment system, following an experience on Friday, September 28, 2012 at a Magistrate Court sitting at Tinubu square, Lagos. There, Mr. Martin Owumi, the presiding Senior Magistrate, grappled with the choices open to him, in a criminal charge against six young persons brought before his court. Sitting at the bar where a number of senior Lawyers, including this writer, waiting for other matters before the Court. That experience showed the need for such centers in metropolitan cities, bursting with youth, energy and delinquency.
The six young men on trial, where charged on a two count charge, under section 5(b) of the Robbery and Fire Arms (Special Provision) Cap 389, Vol. XXII, Laws of Federation, 2011; and section 43 (2) of the Criminal Law of Lagos state, 2011. The alleged criminal conduct was relayed in the open court, by the Police Officer in charge of the investigation at the request of His Honour, Mr. Owumi, as many of us privately wandered what could the young men have done, to be charged with what is clearly an omnibus section in the Robbery and Fire Arms Act, aforementioned.
The story was roughly that one of them owned a gun which he gave his friend to keep, and which that friend put in a bag and handed over to yet another friend for safe keeping. The last two accused borrowed the gun from the temporal custodians, which according to them upon questioning by the Magistrate, they intended to us to harass some people, albeit at an ungodly hour of the day, when some vigilant police men caught them. What struck me was how one gun, which thankfully has not been used to maim or kill somebody in the narrated circumstance, has ensnared six young men into a criminal charge, which upon conviction, may reward all of them with life imprisonment.
The second charge was that they belonged to an unlawful society, which I found out from the charge sheet, was one of the dreaded confraternities joined by many deluded Nigerian youths, especially in the higher institutions. Apart from one of them who claimed to be a graduate of a road side computer school, and another who says he is an actor, the rest have no work, and stopped schooling after their secondary education, and have not learned any meaningful skill or enrolled to learn any. Watching them standing in the dock, they were not looking like the red eyed robbery suspects that are paraded once in a while by the police. In fact they could pass for well heeled graduates or young businessmen, who tried to confuse impunity for exuberance.
His Honour, Mr. Owumi apparently relying on section 15 (2) of the Criminal Law of Lagos state 2011, conferred with the prosecution and the defense lawyers whether the young men can be giving an opportunity for redemption, without a full trial, under one of the disposition measures listed in that section. After his commendable interactions and adjournment of that case, a few of us turned amicus curiae of the court, and encouraged the Magistrate to exercise the option of community service, as punishment for the accused young men. I have taken liberty to relay this matter which is clearly sub judice to highlight a life case that underpins the urgent need for the society to begin to articulate measure to contain and contend with the un-channeled energy of our youths who have lost focus and direction.
While the accused persons standing trial in the case in question are adults, I was worried that many people who are convicted and are sent to prison, or even remanded in prison awaiting a formal trial, turn out as worst scourges to the society, when they come out. No doubt our prisons are punishment centers, and have little chance for rehabilitation of convicts. So when a judge is faced with first offenders that have not gone round the bend in a manner of speaking, there may be the need to rely on the commendable provisions of section 15 (2) of the Criminal Law of Lagos state, 2011. The section lists a number of disposition measures that a court can order as alternative to death, imprisonment, fine and forfeiture. Indeed community service order coupled with a binding-over order to be of good behavior I believe are commendable ways to deal with a clear act of delinquency or even putative criminality that has not mutated to hardened criminality.
There is also the need to remove prisons from the exclusive legislative list of the 1999 constitution, and put it in the concurrent legislative list. Most of the present prisons inherited from the colonial government are dilapidated and insufficient, resulting in overcrowding and dehumanizing conditions, as the camp of the criminals and suspected criminals increase. If our federal system is properly reordered, those convicted of state offences will head to state controlled prisons, while convicts of federal offences will head to federal prisons. Under the current system, the federal government does not make enough budgetary allocation for the prisoners and the welfare of warders.
In a way the inefficiencies at the states and federal level are willy-nilly transferred to each other. This is the case as most of the prison inmates infringed state laws and are in most cases awaiting the advice of the state Director of Public Prosecution; who in most cases may also be hamstrung by the inefficient investigation of the offences against the state laws, by the federal police. In the circumstance while the person who gets sent to jail, looses; the society is the ultimate looser with an increasing share of deviants.
