Delta CJ Decries Rising Number of Youths in Detention

WARRI/Nigeria: As 23 inmates in Sapele Custodial Centre of Nigerian Correctional Service ( formally known as Nigerian Prisons) regained their freedom, the State Chief Judge, Justice Marshal Umukoro has decried the alarming number of youths in prison custody across the State.

The Chief Judge who has so far released 59 inmates in Warri and Sapele Custodial Centres in the ongoing tour to Correctional Service in the state, disclosed that youths between the ages of 17 and 25 constitutes 95 percent out of the 967 warrants of inmates reviewed so far at the two prisons.

Justice Umukoro attributed the negative trend to breakdown of family system and abdication of parental responsibility, stressing that the affected ones were dissipating the most critical period of their life in prison rather than channelling same to useful development to themselves, family and society.

Those released were on the grounds of ill-health, age, lack of diligent prosecution and those who have overstayed the statutory jail term if they had been convicted.

While advising youths to avoid bad association, the chief judge admonished those granted mercy to refrain from criminal and bad conduct that would bring them back to prison, warning that there would be no second chance.

A spectacular case was that of one Henry Edeki in Sapele Custodial Centre arraigned for conspiracy and armed robbery of Ñ50, 000.00 (fifty thousand naira) since 2012.

Mr Edeki who stated that he was a chorister in the church before the incident that led to his incarceration, drew sympathy of the audience with his sonorous voice as he thrilled stakeholders during the exercise with gospel renditions in Urhobo and English Languages.

The released inmates thanked the chief judge for his mercy and giving them opportunity to live a responsible life, saying that they would turn a new leaf and never to go back to their old way of life.

Ndokwa Reporters

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