RoLAC II holds town hall on non-custodial measures, pledges support for Kano govt’s correctional facility
By Abdullahi Yusuf
The Rule of Law and Anti-Corruption Programme (RoLAC II) on Thursday in Kano held a town hall meeting with relevant stakeholders for the dissemination of Non-Custodial Measures strategies across the Justice sector.
The objectives of the meeting are to promote a deeper understanding of non-custodial measures, probation, suspended sentences, their utility, and the opportunities that exist for their utilization in the context of the Nigerian Criminal Justice process, particularly in Kano State.
Other objectives include: endangering wider use of these mechanism in the dispensation of criminal justice.
In her presentation titled: “Understanding Non-Custodial Measures”, Prof. Uju Agomoh, Executive Director, PRAWA and RoLAC/International IDEA Consultant, highlighted the need to implement non-custodial measures to achieve desired goals of inmates decongestion in Correctional facilities.
Prof. Agomoh said states in Nigeria have the mandate to play key role in terms of utilizing Nigerian Correctional Centres citing the enactment of the Kano State Correctional Service Bill.
She emphasized that the role of statekeholders in supporting and improving the structures to have service reforms can never be overemphasized.
She said Custodial Services are like playing back inmates to the society to heal the wound of a crime within the society, while probation is looking at the offender to reduce the risk in the future.
Prof. Agomoh added that Parole is looking at inmates who have been sentenced to various terms but found to be of good behavior.
According to her, Administration of Justice is also an opportunity for victims of offences to be involved in the dispensation of justice.
She said the town hall meeting underscored the need to promote the integration of inmates into the society to have corrective measures, rehabilitation and decongestion of facilities.
Agomoh, therefore,urged the participants to disseminate the resolutions of the meeting to their various institutions in order to achieve the desired goals.
Earlier,RoLAC II State Project Coordinator, Malam Ibrahim Bello, in his opening remarks, said the programme would support the Kano State Government and its institutions to lay good foundation for its future Correctional Facility.
“RoLAC II finds it necessary to support the state government and it’s institutions to lay good foundation for the future state correctional facility by promoting non-custodial measures in the operations of correctional facilities when it comes into operations,” Bello said
He said this is necessary in order to “avoid the fit falls of rising trend of congestion of the facilities with inmates.”
Therefore, the objective of the Town Hall is to deepen the understanding of the stakeholders on non-custodial measures such as community services, parole and suspended sentences.
“We thank all stakeholders for coming, especially the Deputy Controller of Corrections, the DCR Hugh and the DPP from the ministry, the representatives of the Law Enforcement agencies as well as Community leaders, CSOs and the media,” the State Coordinator added.
