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Buhari approves bill changing Prisons Service to Correctional Service

Ezekiel Johnson
Ezekiel Johnson
Convict shot dead after attempt to escape prison in Abuja
Nigerian Prisons Service

The Nigerian Prisons Service will now be known as the Nigerian Correctional Service.

This follows the approval of a bill to that effect by President Muhammadu Buhari.

With the change, the correctional service will run two faculties.

One is the custodial and the other, non-custodial.

The custodial service will ensure the custody and control of persons legally interned in safe, secure and humane conditions; conveying remand persons to and from courts in motorised formations; identifying the existence and causes of anti-social behaviours of inmates; conducting risk and needs assessment aimed at developing appropriate correctional treatment methods for reformation, rehabilitation and reintegration; implementing reformation and rehabilitation programmes to enhance the reintegration of inmates back into the society.

It will also ensure empowering inmates through the deployment of educational and vocational skills training programmes, and facilitating incentives and income generation through custodial centres, farms and industries; administering borstal and related institutions; and providing support to facilitate the speedy disposal of cases of persons awaiting trial.

On the other hand, the non-custodial faculty will take care of the administration of non-custodial measures which will include community service, probation, parole, restorative justice measures and other measures as a court of competent jurisdiction may order.

Also approved in the law is the victim-offender mediation, family group conferencing, community mediation and other conciliatory measures as may be deemed necessary pre-trial, trial during imprisonment or even post- imprisonment stages.

Meanwhile, the president has also approved the changing of the name of the Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi, Benue State.

It will now be known as Joseph Sarwuan Tarka University, Makurdi.

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