ENFORCEMENT OF PRISONERS RIGHTS: PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS


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
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