Perception Of Inmates On Custodial Centre Facilities: Findings From Hadejia Custodial Centre, Jigawa State, Nigeria

The establishment of prisons is inevitable as there is a need for such institution to serve as retribution centres for the law breakers. The major intent is for the institution to serve as corrective mechanism to re-orientate the offenders to fit for societal re-integration having served the prescribed duration of incarceration by the judgment of the court. However, there have been arguments that the Nigerian prisons instead of correcting the inmates do make them to be more hardened. It was in attempt to correct this that the federal government changed the name to Nigeria Correctional Service. It is against this backdrop that this paper attempts to examine the perception of the inmates on the extent to which the facilities mend their character using Hadejia Custodial Centre in Jigawa State as point of reference. In doing this, quantitative method was employed in the course of the study and a total number of 150 copies of questionnaire were distributed to 119 convicted and 31 awaiting trial inmates. Data obtained were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistical tools. The result shows a contradiction in the perception of inmates on custodial centre facilities. The study recommends an improvement of certain facilities as a number of inmates complained of inadequate facilities.