AN APPRAISAL OF THE CUSTODIAL RIGHTS OF AN OFFENDER IN THE NIGERIAN PENAL SYSTEM

Imprisonment is essentially a form of punishment imposed on the offender by courts or tribunals. However, it is the sentence of imprisonment, and not the treatment accorded in prisons that constitute the punishment. This is so because offenders come to prison not for punishment but as punishment imposed on them by a court of law based on the principles of revenge (ie retribution) or expiation or deterrence or rehabilitation and reformation. Accordingly once the court ensure that an offender receives his just deserts by means of a prison sentence that is neither too short nor too long, having regard to the gravity. of the offence and the offenders culpability, as a matter of policy the Nigerian Prison authorities cooperate by ensuring that the offender remains within the walls for the whole term. Infact, every superintendent of the Nigerian Prison Service is by law auhthorised and required to keep and detain all person duly committed to his custody by any judge, magistrate, justice of the peace or other authority lawfully exercising civil and criminal jurisdiction, according to the terms of any warrant or order by which any such person has been committed until that person is discharged by due course of law.