Nigeria: How feasible is criminal

information system for convicts?
As a way of strengthening the justice system and ensuring security of citizens, experts posit that tangible and user-friendly data system be developed for efficient exchange of information on convictions in the country.
KEHINDE OSASONA writes
A poser Experts have argued that Criminal Records Information System (CRIS) will assist the police with useful information that will help in controlling, apprehend, prosecute, and sanction criminals.
They also say that it is capable of helping to circulate information about previous convictions among judges, prosecutors and police authorities.
Arguing further, they say it would provide adequate reactions to every form of crime and thus prevent new crimes from being committed.
Facts and statistics New data from Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics suggests Nigerian prisons may hold more innocents than guilty criminals.
Covering data from 2011 to 2015, shows that 72.5% of Nigeria’s total prison population are inmates serving various jail term while awaiting trial and without being sentenced.
But, the alarming figures highlight key flaws in Nigeria’s criminal justice system with proceedings often going on for years without conclusion.
While lawyers often cite a large number of cases being tried as a reason for long drawn-out trials, the charged inmates on the other side of the divide, often spend years waiting to get convicted or win back their freedom.
Evidently, NBS data suggests Nigeria officially has a low incarceration rate with a total prison population of 62,260 much less than 1% of the total population, when compared to countries with populations between 100 and 350 million people, Nigeria has the lowest prison population rate per 100,000 citizens.
NPS flaws Meanwhile, some of the stakeholders allege that the Nigerian Prisons Service doesn’t have data on how many of serving inmates are guilty of previous crimes.
The claim that “about 70% of the people in Nigerian prisons have never been convicted of any crime” is therefore unproven.
They hinged their stance on the fact that recent statistics reeled out from the NPS shows that two-thirds of inmates still need to be tried.
Reasons offered include; shoddy investigations, court congestion and strict bail conditions.
Building capacities Proffering solutions, the NPS, in collaboration with the International Committee of Red Cross, conducted training program for staff members of the Statistics, Records and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Units in Rivers state.
The Zonal Coordinator, Zone ‘E’ Owerre, Dr J.J Olorunmola, who represented the Controller General of Prisons, Ja’afaru Ahmed, at the Case Management System (CMS) training, assured that the electronic information system was designed not only to manage or upgrade record keeping but also provide a guide on policy development, which will serve the intended purpose of improving on technical reporting against the manual mode of inmates’ statistical data.
He said: “The training is to digitise prisoners’ registry, design and develop automate case management system and to quicken prisoner’s access to justice by ensuring judicial guarantees.
Training and retraining of staff to enhance capacity building of officers and men of the service is one of the priorities of this present administration,” Lagos as pacesetters Meanwhile, Lagos state government appears to be setting the pace with the recent inauguration of the Lagos Criminal Information System (LCIS), an electronic system for tracking and capturing biometric details of suspects and offenders in the state.
At the presentation of the LCIS to stakeholders of Criminal Justice Administration, the state’s Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr Adeniji Kazeem, noted that there existed 71 juveniles in the custody of the five prison facilities in the state, describing as worrisome and shameful a situation where juveniles interact with criminals.
He further revealed that over 82 percent of the inmates in Lagos Prisons have no legal representation, and that over 90 percent of them are within the age range of 18-49 years, bulk of whom are within the productive population of the country.
According to him, the LCIS, which is an improvement over the Crime Data Register introduced about 10 years ago to capture biometrics of suspects and convicts such as fingerprints and photograph, has now been enhanced to deliver an all-encompassing automated information system and to provide a broad spectrum of information on suspects and convicts.
Continuing, the AG stated that data captured so far under the LCIS also revealed existence of 100 inmates with mental health issues.
He said that so far, the state has enrolled and took inventory of over 8,500 inmates in all the prisons in the state under the new electronic system.
“The scope of the LCIS, apart from the original role of tracking suspects and offenders, has now been expanded to capture several other information, including number of inmates within all prisons in Lagos state, the prevalence of certain offences and the notorious areas, the number of juveniles in custody, and the peculiarity of certain inmates with special needs.
“The audit and census of the inmates under the first phase of the LCIS revealed some astonishing facts in the prisons.
For instance, while the total capacity of the five prisons was 4,087, they currently accommodated over 8,500; with Kirikiri Medium prison accounting for 3,294 inmates, while I,887, 1,600, 516 and 205 inmates are in Ikoyi, Maximum, Badagry and women prisons respectively as at May, this year,” he further explained.
Advancing further, an in-house technical partner and researcher of the Ministry of Justice, Mr Musibay Famuyiwa, who took stakeholders through how the LCIS works, disclosed that extracts and information generated from data obtained from the prisons, revealed that over 90 per cent of the inmates are within the age of 18 and 49 years considered as productive population, 76 per cent are awaiting trials, 80 per cent have no legal representation.
He said while 32 per cent of domestic and sexual offences are rape cases, 30 per cent are defilement while 15 per cent accounted for sexual assaults.
Relishing achievements According to the Lagos state government, the register has helped in monitoring cases among the state’s Ministry of Justice, Nigeria Police and the Prisons Service.
In improving the state of the register, Kazeem hinted that the crime data register was reviewed earlier in the year and renamed as Lagos Criminal Information System.
He said: “The Lagos Criminal Information System, LCIS also known as Criminal Case Tracking System, was initiated earlier in the year by the Ministry of Justice as a crime data register that serves as a repository of biometric data of persons who have been in contact with the Criminal Justice System.
“There are over 8,000 inmates currently being captured in the LCIS database in the Prison, Police and within the Criminal Justice Administration Sector and this include their personal, physical and bio-metric details.” Overcoming challenges And at the recent 1st Democracy Lecture series of the Faculty of Arts, University of Abuja, Controller-General of the Nigerian Prisons Service, Ja’afaru Ahmed, identified overcrowding, inadequate staffing, poor funding, inadequate logistic support and decaying infrastructure as major challenges confronting the Service.
He said the enactment of the Nigerian Prisons and Correctional Service currently before the National Assembly is a way of overcoming these challenges.
He also cited the adoption of the Administration of Criminal Justice by all state governments, especially its provisions on speedy trials; use of alternatives to custodial sentence; use of plea bargain and application of detention time limits as ways to overcoming the challenges.