Our prisons' conditions, not for the 21st. century

We entered the twenty-first century with much fanfare some fourteen years ago.

We might have also celebrated the end of the second millennium the way we did on the 31st of December, 1999, perhaps, without thinking deeply what this meant for mankind, in a world that has been overwhelmed by disease, natural and human disasters, rebellious and senseless terrorism.

This, of-course is a global phenomenon. And there was also a global response to this phenomenon of making life a little more bearable in such areas as health for all, education for all, portable water for and why not, even more human prisons conditions for all by the year 2015.

While various governments throughout the world might still be grappling with the problem of how to attain these goals, there is certainly no excuse for our government’s feet dragging in improving conditions in our prisons.

To say the conditions in our prisons are inhuman, first in terms of over-crowding, the lack of related sanitary requirements, such as good toilet facilities, portable water and even the option of feeding inmates with the quality of good capable of sustaining a human being is not an over statement. It is real.

After all, prisoners are ordinary human beings who have simply broken the laws of the state and the norms of society, but who deserve to be brought back in line with what it requires to be a free member of the community.

And this can only be achieved if a convicted person is given the opportunity to realise how far he has gone out of the way to find himself where he is as a prisoner.

This opportunity can be offered by way of turning our prisons into rehabilitation centres, by offering convicts better conditions that will shape their minds and thinking to prepare them for a renewed character with which they shall be ushered into the free world at the end of their prison terms with confidence.

We are certainly not being sentimental, but the truth needs to be reiterated over and over, that prison authorities should not overemphasize the principle of punishment without also applying the other ultimate side of rehabilitation.

It is therefore, a matter of priority in our emergence agenda, that government must look seriously into the conditions of our prisons, so to reflect the corrective, and not just the punitive philosophy of the prison institutions.

Better structures must be constructed to allow more space for the inmates to fill the comfort that is limited for them as prisoners. These structures should include all related sanitary requirements, which include good toilet facilities, clean portable water, clean sleeping material, and above all some recreational facilities.

This is very necessary because we are dealing with human beings and not animals in the 21st century.