THE NIGERIA CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM AND ITS EFFECTIVENESS IN CRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR CONTROL

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Criminal Justice System (CJS) is an essential part of any civilized nation to ensure justice, fairness, the practice of the rule of law and the institutionalization of a democratic system. The CJS is a system comprising of many bodies, groups, institutions or agencies that have been charged with the responsibilities of ensuring social agreement and mass compliance with the law, and deciding whether or not an individual is guilty of violating the laws of the society, and the appropriate punishment to be meted to such an individual. In addition to such responsibility, the CJS is also responsible for the care and rehabilitation of individuals found guilty of breaking the laws and to whom prescribed punishment is meted out. Anecdotal evidences and a cursory look around one however suggests that something is wrong somewhere particularly considering the waves of crime in Nigeria. Instances of kidnaps for a ransom, incessant killings and armed robbery attacks are daily in the news. More worrisome is the alarming cases of recidivism which then calls to question the usefulness of the rehabilitation and reformatory homes. The question then is, what characteristics of the CJS factors in the effectiveness or otherwise of this system? This study, thus, focuses on the roles of the Nigeria criminal justice system and its effectiveness in criminal behavior control. The roles and effectiveness of its principal actors are examined and analyzed within relevant theoretical frameworks. For the purpose of this paper, crime is depicted as any act which is against the law and which attracts punishment and/or fine as stipulated by the law. Hence, any reference to crime in this paper captures crimes such as corruption, fraud, bribery, embezzlement, rape, murder, robbery, assault, and so on that violates the laws of the nation.

The Nigerian criminal justice system is fundamentally flawed and the problem is represented and manifested at every processing point on the entire criminal justice system line - from the failure of governance institutions to design a suitable criminal justice policy that serves the current need of the country, to the inability of the legislature to appropriately transform policies into laws, from an oddly designed judicial system plagued by massive corruption, incompetence and crippling bureaucratic bottlenecks to an outdated and counterproductive style of policing and a correctional services that inhumanely warehouses those considered “innocent” by the very law of the society. Criminal justice can be defined either as a system or as process (Moore, 1997). Defined as a system, it refers to the set of agencies and processes established by the state to manage crime and impose penalties on violators of criminal law (Newman, 1978). Criminal justice process which is subsumed under the criminal justice system involves the procedure for arrest, charging, trial and conferment of a suspect. Policies on the criminal justice system are built on five components and these are: the law enforcement component, the court system, the prosecution, corrections system and the community. (Clare & Krammer, 1977) Governance determines how the criminal justice system as an institution of social control in a country is defined and utilized. Furthermore, how well a country manages its criminal justice system affects its overall performance on the governance index. An effective criminal justice system is one of the key pillars upon which the concept of the rule of law is built because it serves as a functional mechanism to redress grievances and bring violators of social norms to justice (Garland, 1990).

A country that gets its criminal justice system right has effectively addressed a great part of its governance concerns because of the centrality of the criminal justice system to order and stability. This paper seeks to undertake the following: measure the performance of Nigeria’s criminal justice system, using quantitative and qualitative indicators; review the adequacy of the Nigerian criminal justice policy and analyze how the trio of criminal legislations, court system and the prison services collectively undermine the criminal justice system.

TOPIC: THE NIGERIA CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM AND ITS EFFECTIVENESS IN CRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR CONTROL 

Format: MS Word

Chapters: 1 - 5, Abstract, References
Delivery: Email

Number of Pages: 55

Price: 3000 NGN

In Stock

Buy Now