A Survey Study of the Remedial Justification of the Nigerian Prison System: The Need to Restructure and Overhaul the Legal Regime

The objective of this paper was to carry out a survey of remedial justification of the Nigerian prison system with a view to proffering solutions aimed at the restructure and overhaul of the legal regime. The paper utilised both qualitative and quantitative methods of investigation.It adopted a case study and empirical review of corrective facilitiesavailable in Abakaliki, Enugu and Kuje Prisons all in Nigeriathrough a structured questionnaire administered to staff and inmates of these prisons for the purpose of ascertaining the adequacy of such facilities. The results showed a gross neglect of Nigerian prisons and a departure from the goal of rehabilitation and reformation of inmates. The paper however, found that the major challenges to restructuring Nigerian prisons flowed from the lacunae in the prisons law, unfaithfulness of the Nigerian government to promoting a viable criminal justice system through prisons reforms and public apathy. Our results in this paper will benefit researchers and policy makers, which is aimed at galvanizing opinions towards overhaul of the legal regime of the Nigerian prisons system