Prisons in Anglophone Cameroon

The Prison Service in British Southern Cameroons had a constitutional mandate to provide rehabilitation programmes with the goal of transforming the conduct and welfare of prisoners. To deliver this mandate, the Prison Service this article explores the transformation and rehabilitation of prisoners in the British Southern Cameroons prison service which incorporates various types of social and economic activities. The main focus is on the rehabilitation programmes which existed within the prison service between 1922 and 1992. The changes in the laws which necessitated these activities as well as how the prisons were organised to carry out these very important activities are examined. Because of the need to instill inmates with skills and entrepreneurial capacities aimed at facilitating their re-insertion into the society, the correctional institutions moved away from a punitive approach to rehabilitation. This paper discusses the various innovative transformation and rehabilitation programmes that were implemented and designed to enhance the offender’s skills and to encourage their creativity and potentials. In collaboration with missionary societies and other agencies, the government rehabilitated prisoners through various programmes: skills development, psychological services, social work services, and spiritual care. The paper argues that while prisoners left the prison with development skills and knowledge that reduced reoffending and facilitated their reintegration into the community, the increasing number of inmates became over bearing on the resources that the government earmarked for the implementation of rehabilitation programmes

Business · Criminology · Mandate · Political science · Prison · Public relations · Sociology · Welfare · Law · Psychology · Public Administration · Religion and Sociopolitical Dynamics in Nigeria · Social Work · Rehabilitation