By Elisha Arafin & Olamide Talub

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Security experts have called on the Nigerian government to make vocational skills available in the correctional centres, saying unemployment serves as the root of most crimes in Nigeria.

Experts in separate interviews with The Hope opined that correctional centres in Nigeria lack adequate facilities and enough database.

It is observed that many inmates at the correctional centres usually come back hardened.

A criminologist, Dr. Daniel Adediran Ikuomola opined that correctional centres in Nigeria would have been better places for rehabilitation of criminals, if the government had worked on the economy and be sure institutions work optimally across the country.

“Currently, it is not about the correctional centres, there’s a systemic problem. In terms of security, the country is nothing to write home about,” he added.

He said government were the one producing monsters and hardened criminals and not the correctional centres.

He added that people would imbibe criminal tendencies when jobless,

Ikuomola recommended  country’s restructuring and suggested that more fund be  given to correctional centres as needed like every other institutions, saying it could  be called rehabilitation centres.

“The workers will be overwhelmed. The government is not funding correctional centres like every other institutions. Poor funding is a problem, government needs to increase the funding for these centres.

“For example, we have good laws but implementation has always been the case, funding, increment of salaries, providing jobs for people.

“There should be provision of latest or current equipment in prisons to make work easier for officers and ensure that the environment these people are coming to is conducive. The society first before we talk about correctional centre, if other system works well, correctional centres will be okay,” he added

A legal officer for Justice Development and Peace Center Akure, Mr. Adedotun Adegoroye described Nigeria’s correctional centers as a work in progress, adding that the inadequate  resources and lack of attention from the government have not brought out the best in them.

Adedotun opined that there was not enough database for the correctional centers on whatever persons released from their custodies.

According to him “I do not think the correctional centres have enough database to monitor whatever persons released from their custody are up to. And it has proved impossible to create any form of parole system, the implication of that expressly tell how prisoner has been rehabilitated after they have gone through the correctional centres.

He also suggested that there should be availability of vocational skills, enough database as it would aid better rehabilitation of prisoners.

He recommended that financial resources alone could not help transform correctional centres, but provision of psychological resources to effectively carry out their job.

Another legal practitioner, Mrs. Olajumoke Oladejo said lack of good remuneration for workers in Nigeria’s correctional centres had brought about sloppy performances.

“Good working environment is a good motivator, everybody would give the best. When everything is well arranged in

place and getting good rewards from the labour, they like to perform better. But in the absence of good pay, the workers work incompetently and they are actually menace to the prisoners.

Oladejo added that the living conditions of inmates at the correctional centres must be upgraded for the facilities to function as expected.

 “Using the Correctional Centres I visited as a yardstick, it not a kind of life that will rehabilitate anybody. Once they are used to the life inside there, it becomes trauma in their lives. They will not think like normal citizens and many of them find it difficult to function well in the society except those who have a good family support or support from any quarters.

 “If the government can work on the hygiene, standard of living or the quality of life in those correctional centers, I think there will be positive rehabilitations of prisoners and not to turn them to monsters in any way” she added.