CHALLENGES
TO THE RIGHTS OF PRISONERS
A person is confined on a known
existence identification, is infringes is right to personal liberty. The
prisoner will sue for habeas corpus contesting against the law for which he is
incarcerated. In many countries, the high level of
official secrecy has made it difficult to ascertain the number of prisoners.
This has also cut off information about prison abuses. By barring human rights
groups; journalists and other observers access to their prison facilities,
prison officials seeks to shield substandard condition storm critical scrutiny.
Conditions of detention vary greatly from country to country and facility to
facility. This makes the standards in most countries shockingly low. A lot of
the prisons especially in developing countries are plagued by severe over
cowing, decaying physical infrastructure, a lack of medical care, guard abuse
and corruption and prisoner- on prisoner violence.
While violence is a factor for death
of prisoners, disease due to overcrowding, malnutrition, unhygienic conditions
and lack of medical care remain the most common cause of death in prisons. Food
conditions and shortages as well as overcrowding create ideal conditions for
the spread of communicable diseases.
Another challenge is government
continued reliance on old. Antiquated and physically decaying prison
facilities. The prison are not maintained as many of the facilities are in a
state of disrepair leaving prisoners to reside in deplorable facilities. Fiscal
constraints and competing budget priorities have been blamed for prison
deficiencies and decay in some countries like Nigeria. This has made it
impossible for the internalization and implementation of the U.N. standard
minimum rules for the treatment of prisoners.
Also secret detention centers and
other controversial practices used in the war against terrorism are questioning
and compromising the absolute prohibition of torture and forms of cruel, in
human or degrading treatment meted out to prisoner.
Some counties are applying measures
against terrorism without defining the term and there is a well-established
trend of states resorting to the notion of terrorism to stigmatize political,
ethnic regional or other movements they simply do not like, governments must
fulfill their international obligations when combating terrorism but the
problem that arises is the exceptional difficult and controversial undertaking
of developing a single definition of terrorism.
Public concern has been focused on
punishment of prisoners. i.e how they should be thoroughly dealt with public
concern that prisoners should confined and seriously death with rather than
about the prison condition only title progress has been made towards remedying
the abuses.
Mass killing in prisons goes
unnoticed. In some prisons, other inmates rather than guards, kill inmates.
Inmates on-inmate violence is the predictable result of official negligence. By
neglecting to supervise and contract the inmates within their facilities, by
corruptly allowing the entry of weapons into the prisons, prison authorities
are directly responsible for the occurrence. Physical abuse of prisoners by
guards remains another chronic problem
entitlement and provide evidence as to the proper practice that should be
adopted by prison authorities. Given the substantial powers that guards
exercise over prisoners and their low salaries, these problems are aggravated
as in exchange for contraband or special treatment
prisoners supplement guards’ salaries’ with bribes.
With these problems, prisoners have
had difficulty in drawing public attention to the violation of their right or
their enforcement. As a result they resort to hunger strikes, self-mutilation,
rioting and other forms of protest. All these problems have arisen because
these rights are not absolute. They are all subject to compatibility with the
administration of justice and of the security and good order of the prison
institution. What is compatibility then is therefore a question of fact
depending on the circumstances of each case. As a result, countries cannot
therefore mandatory apply the minimum standard.
SUGGESTIONS
AND CONCLUSION
The prison authorities control
virtually every aspect of prisoners life. While prisoners do have certain
rights for which they file many civil rights suits, laws and regulations within
and amongst countries differ on the scope and limit of prisoner’s rights.
We suggest that while the
classification is necessary for purpose of categorization, the basis must be to
keep separately those prisoners who, by reason of their criminal record or bad
characters, are likely to exercise bad influence, and in order to facilitate
their treatment with a view to their social rehabilitation, it will be
necessary after their admission to study the personality of each prisoner
facilitate the preparation of a programme of treatment for them in the light of
the knowledge obtained about their individual needs, capabilities and
dispositions. It is also suggested that privileges be introduced in order to
encourage good conflict develop a sense of responsibility and secure the
interest and cooperation of the prisoners. The treatment meted out to prisoners
should always emphasizes not their exclusion from the community, but their
continuing part of it. Steps should be taken to safeguard, to the maximum,
extent compatible with the law and the sentence, the right relating to civil
interest, social security rights and other social benefits of prisoners. The
fulfillment of these principles requires individualization of treatment and for
this purpose a flexible system of classifying prisoners in groups is adopted to
protect varying degrees of right needs of different groups.
Education of prisoners can be
integrated into the educational system of the country of that after their
release, they may continues their education without difficulty. Education and
public enlightenments of the general public is also very necessary to alleviate
the sufferings of prisoners.
It is suggested that before
completion of sentences, it is desirable that steps be taken to ensure for a
prisoner a gradual return to life in society. A pre-releases regime or release
on trial under supervision with effective social aid for social rehabilitation
of prisoners will therefore be relevant. Upon release, the released prisoner
should receive well after care directed towards the lessening of prejudice
against him and towards his social rehabilitation.
To this end, all appropriate means
shall be used including religious care, education, vocational guidance and
training, social are work employment, counseling, physical development and
strengthening. Moral character in accordance with individual needs of reach
prisoners to reinvent him. His social and criminal history, physical and mental
capacities and aptitudes, personal temperament, length of sentence should be
taken into account. facilities should be provided as assistance to help
prisoners in the periods following their release.
It is desirable that the number of
prisoners in any accommodation should be large that individualization of
protection of rights is hindered. Over population should therefore prohibited.
The corrupt activities of prison
guards should be punished with dismal.
The judiciary should endevour
protect the rights of prisoners. There are cases where courts cleverly avoid
getting itself entangled with making any declaration on complaints about the
prison conditions..
CONCLUSION
Prison population all over the world
is a sort of mixed grill, it made up of adults, male and female, young person,
children, pregnant women, nursing mothers, criminal and civil lunatics,
debtors, detainees star prisoner and recidivists, long and short term
prisoners, condemned criminals and inmates awaiting trail or being held for
safely custody. These groups are not represented equally1
The rights of prisoners are rights,
which the executive the legislature and the judiciary are all enjoined to
protect. Where there is violation of the rights injury to a prisoner, the
prisoner must be compensated. It has not been an easy tasks to convince many
people that the prisoner should be entitled to some rights. In Becker v Home Office,2 Lord denning stated that the rights of
prisoners under the law and rules were regulatory directions only, which could
not give rise to cause of action when not observed.3
Consequently, it is now clear that
prisoners are in dire of the rights for their protection. Several decision
illustrated in this work as therefore that the prisoner can claim all those
rights under the constitution and other rules, which provides legal cover and
protection for them. Are hereby enjoined t lay their claims hen in breach and
appropriate.
REFERENCES
Annual abstract of statistic in Nigeria 1980. Also
Nigeria prison services annual report 1980/81 cited on p. 80 1993 J.U.S Vol. 6.
No. 4.
Black Law Dictionary sixth centennial edition
(1891-1991) P. 11194.
Human Rights watch: Prison conditions and the
treatment of prisoners @ http:/hrp.org/prison/unit.nations.html.
International covenant on civil political Rights
Ngozi Udombana “Rights of prisoners and detainees in
Nigeria.
The 1999 Constitution of Federal Republic of Nigeria.
The Prisons Act cap. P29, 2004
The African Charter on Human and People’s Ratification
and Enforcement Act Cap 10LFN, 1990 now cap A9 Vol. 1 LFN. 2004.
The propurt of prison system-what to Expect @
http:/wwhumanights.gov.an/social-justice/tracking/prisons-htm.
Prisons Act CAP 366 laws of the Federal Republic of
Nigeria 1990.
UN Human Rights Committee, general comment 21
paragraph 3 the human Rights Committee provides authoritative interpretations
of the ICCPER though the periodic insurance of periodicals.
1 See annual
abstract of statistics in Nigeria
1980. Also Nigeria Prison service annual report 1980/81 cited on p.8-0 1993
J.U.S. VOl 6 No.4
2 (1972) 2 q.
b. 407018
3 Ibid