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A prison, correctional facility, penitentiary, gaol or jail is a facility in which inmates are forcibly confined and denied a variety of freedoms under the authority of the state as a form of punishment. The most common use of prisons is as part of a criminal justice system in which individuals officially charged with or convicted of crimes are confined to a prison until they are either brought to trial to determine their guilt or complete the period of incarceration they were sentenced to after being found guilty at their trial.
The beginning of prisons can be traced back to the rise of the state as a form of social organization which coincided with the development of written language that helped in the creation of formalized legal codes as official guidelines for the society. The penalties for violations of these laws were almost exclusively centred in the concept of retaliation found in legal codes of early civilization. A variety of existing structures were used to house prisoners such as metal cages, basements of public buildings and quarries. Forced labour in public projects and varying terms of slavery were commonly associated with prisoners.
Every society has always had her own criminal justice system with a provision of the prison system to accommodate offenders. Long before the colonial masters came, Africans had developed their own traditional criminal justice with the prisons usually located near the palaces. The possession of the right and the capability to imprison citizens however granted an air of legitimacy to officials at all levels of government from kings to village heads. The colonial masters merely built on the system they met on the ground by improving on the state of the accommodation. The colonial masters used some of these facilities as an asylum for offenders who resisted colonialism and banished them under the guise of some mental illness without proper clinical assessment and treatment plan. This actually illustrates the precarious relationship between correctional facilities and mental health.
Two major theories have dominated the development of the prison system namely the ‘Theory of Deterrence’ that makes the prison a harsh place to deter people from committing crime out of fear of going to prison and the ‘Rehabilitation or Moral Theory’ which is based on the religious ideas that equated crime with sin and views the prison as a place to instruct prisoners in moral lessons, obedience and proper behavior. The later reformers affirm that prisons could be managed as humane institutions of moral instructions where the prisoners’ behaviour could be corrected to become models of good behaviour when they are released. They could be initiated members of society.
Long years of military rule had negatively affected the development of our prison system where they had functioned as mere facilities of repression especially for those tagged as political offenders. However, the challenges of a democratic 21st century Nigeria prescribes that our prison system must be managed in a way that will enhance mental capital development. In a century with decades of substantial oil earnings still parading more than 80% of her population living below the poverty line should prepare for a strong prison system to cater for those reacting against oppression by the few thieving elites and to reform the megalomaniac political office holders. It is empirically established that unemployment, poor housing and poverty are responsible for the increased violation of our legal codes leading to the overpopulation of our prisons. These factors are paradoxically associated with the development of mental health disorders. In the U.S.A for instance, there about 2.2 million of her citizens in the prison among whom there is a higher percentage of the mentally ill than in the psychiatric hospitals. A systematic review of 62 surveys of the incarcerated population from 12 western countries; the men have about 3.7% psychosis, 10% depression, 65% having a personality disorder with 47% of them with the antisocial type. Among the women prisoners, 4% have psychosis, 12% depression, 42% have personality disorders and about 70% of the total inmates having primary or co-existing cases of substance abuse. Unfortunately, barely 1 in 3 ever get identified or treated even in such developed climes.
Mental health is therefore at the centre of any effective prison reform program. As much as we are culturally wired in the direction of punishment rather than reformation; mental health issues certainly underlie most cases of imprisonment either as a political office holder embezzling millions of funds meant for constructing bridges and roads or the vagrant miscreants economically displaced and homeless that had to resort to antisocial activities to survive. They all need a robust mental health- based rehabilitation program. I am not certain the Nigerian Prison Authority can boast of two Consultant Psychiatrists and quite doubtful how much of mental health training is included in the training of our prison workers.
Dr Adeoye Oyewole
adeoyewole2000@yahoo.com
+234 803 490 5808 (WhatsApp Only)
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