24th July, 2018
By Kazeem Ugbodaga
The Lagos State Government has lamented that 100 mentally challenged inmates and 71 juveniles are currently in prisons across the state.
Speaking at the launch/presentation of the Lagos State Criminal Information System (LCIS), in Alausa, Ikeja, Lagos, Southwest Nigeria on Tuesday, the Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Adeniji Kazeem said the LCIS had become an indispensable tool in the administration of criminal Justice in Lagos State which the Justice System now heavily rely upon.
He also said so far, over 8,500 inmates were currently in all the prisons in Lagos State, as such information could be found in the LCIS.
“This information essentially, is to aid the implementation of reforms in the justice system. Consequently, the project has become pivotal in the administration of Criminal justice in Lagos, as exhibited, especially in recent discoveries and revelations from the data capturing exercise at the prisons. A major dynamics is its capacity to assist in planning and statistics purposes.
“The Audit and census taken in the prison in its first Phase revealed some astonishing facts ranging from number of Awaiting Trial inmates in the prisons, to the current grossly overstretched prison capacity. Most outrageous is the disparity in the maximum capacity of prisons in Lagos viz a viz the actual number of inmates presently in those prisons. The total capacity of all the prisons in Lagos State is 4,087. While it actually accommodates 8,500 inmates.
“Under normal circumstances, juveniles are not meant to be incarcerated with adults. But what the LCIS has revealed so far has been rather shameful. Juveniles and under aged inmates amounting to about 71 are presently in custody of the prisons, interacting with criminals,” he said.
According to him, through the information gathered so far, the government had been able to identify prevalent offences and notorious crime areas in the State, adding that another thing “is information about inmates with mental health issues, data captured so far reveals that about 100 inmates with psychological issues are within the walls of the prisons, this ought not to be so.”
He said that at the first phase, focus was on the collection of data from the various prisons in Lagos State, adding that the next phase was set to expand its activities to the police and the Ministry of Justice, and “it seeks to automate and enable the police and the Ministry of Justice interface and communicate on the LCIS Criminal data system by installing and deploying the platform at the selected police stations and the Ministry of Justice.
“The LCIS will utilize the Register to inform continuous restructuring of the Office of the DPP, monitor police prosecutions in the magistrate courts and identify the major causes of delay in criminal trials in the State. Beyond this, the Register will serve as a much needed database of criminal records for the State.
“It will enable stakeholders identify areas which require immediate and the earliest interventions, guide policy making and ensure more informed process in various prison visits. The LCIS is obliged to produce Quarterly Report on the number of enrolled inmates by prisons, time taken to generate Legal Advice, inmates by gender, types of offences,and average time taken to complete a case in court among other things.”
Earlier, Kazeem said in 2017, the current administration decided to review the operations of the criminal case tracking system with a view to reviving and expanding the scope, saying that the Criminal Case Tracking System or Crime Data Register had now been rechristened LCIS.
He explained that this remained an electronic repository of information about suspects and offenders who passed through the state’s Criminal Justice System, saying that the project which was originally designed to capture biometrics details such as fingerprints and photographs of suspects and convicts, as well as develop a crime data management system with software that provided a database of all people who are in the criminal justice system in Lagos; had now been enhanced to deliver an all-encompassing automated information system and to provide a broad spectrum of Information on suspects and convicts.