A Prison
By SaharaReporters, New York
Justice Phillips released the inmates during an inspection tour of the detention facilities ahead of her retirement. The retiring judge is scheduled to step down from the bench on July 25, 2014.
While 71 inmates were set free at the medium facility, three were released at the maximum prison, and one at the female prison.
Speaking afterwards, Justice Phillips revealed that she made the move in order to further decongest the prisons, while also “showing mercy” to inmates who had not been tried for many years.
She lamented that despite her best efforts to redress the congestion of prisons during her tenure as Chief Judge, the challenge still remains unsolved.
“I really don't know what more I could have done as a person to reduce the number of awaiting-trial inmates”, said Phillips, who urged the freed inmates not to return to criminal ways.
“They form the bulk of the number of persons in our prisons today, and we need to go back to the drawing board to see how we can reduce it. And this is why we came up with various reforms in the criminal justice system, particularly the introduction of the bail guidelines. It’s all to decongest our prisons,” Justice Phillips said.
DCP Olumide Tinuoye, the Deputy Controller at the Maximum Security Prison, thanked the judge for her kindness to the inmates, but revealed that there were still 389 awaiting-inmates at the maximum facility.
Lagos is not the only state grappling with the congestion of prisons by inmates awaiting trial.
Last month, for example, the Kaduna State Government released 212 awaiting-trial inmates. Mr. Dari Bayero, the Secretary of the Committee on Decongestion of Prisons in Kaduna State, had said this was part of efforts of the state government to free up congested prisons all over the state.
Of the 212 inmates, 112 had spent close to 12 years in prison custody without prosecution.
No comments:
Post a Comment