LASG Overwhelmed by Prison Congestion
- Says 4.000 Inmates awaiting trial in Lagos prisons
· 1,107 prosecuted in mobile courts in 3 months
By Gboyega Akinsanmi
The Lagos State Government at the weekend disclosed that of the 5,000 inmates in different prisons in the state, no fewer than 4,000 were still awaiting trial, representing 80 percent.
The state government added that through its newly initiated mobile courts, it had successfully prosecuted 1,107 persons who violated different environmental and traffic regulations in the state.
The Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr. Adeniji Kazeem, disclosed this at a news conference he addressed alongside his information & strategy counterpart, Mr. Steve Ayorinde, and the state’s Solicitor-General, Mrs. Funlola Odunlami, among others.
He noted that 80 percent of 5,000 inmates in the prisons across the state “are awaiting trials in spite of the effort of the state government to decongest the prisons. A lot has to be done in decongesting prisons in the state.”
He said the state government had introduced community service in order to address prison congestion, saying 2,073 offenders were sentenced “to various terms of community service across the state’s 12 Magisterial Districts between May 2015 and March 2016.”
According to him, the offenders actively assisted to improve their respective communities instead of being incarcerated in prisons with the consequential disruption to their economic, social and family lives.
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