THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE ADMINISTRATION AND PRISON DE-CONGESTION IN NIGERIA

The Nigeria prisons have suffered a lot of pitfalls in the past. This is largely due to neglect and mismanagement of resources and misplaced value that had resulted to the congestion of inmates in the prison. Recently, there are clarion calls for de-congestion of inmates in the prisons and quick dispensation of justice to decongest the inmates in the prison. The study aim to assess the conceptual framework and analysis of prison, causes and implications of prison congestion as well as theory relevant to the subject matter. The congestion of prisofis in Nigeria is basically caused by; court delay>ance in the administration of justice, poverty, police abuse ofpower to arrest, and bad condition to speed administration of justice. Prison congestion brings about poor feeding, poor accommodation, and poor medical condition of inmates. This exposes inmates to learn more criminal skills. Based on the above, the study recommends that government should expand and improve facilities to measure with the increasing population of the inmates awaiting trials in the prison and whose offenses are not too serious should be set free or punished accordingly in place of imprisonment. And again cases of awaiting trials should be speed up. The study also suggests that the government should employ adequate measure to ensure that recommendations posited in the study are implemented for effective administration of criminal justice towards prison decongestion in Nigeria.