At the Medium Security Custodial Centre in Old, Nassarawa State, REJA Initiative hosted a transformative Correctional Centre outreach event, dedicated to uplifting and supporting incarcerated women…………………..
When persons are accused of committing offences, they are often secluded from the society and remanded in places where they are to serve out their sentences. These places are called “correctional centres”. The idea behind correctional centres is to rehabilitate these individuals and equip them with the necessary skills and vocations to allow seamless re-entry into society.
As an organization, we promote the use of rehabilitative and restorative measures in dealing with cases of criminal nature, to curb re-offending and promote criminal justice reforms.
The rehabilitative measures used by our organization Reja Initiative includes skills and vocational trainings such as our recently conducted ‘Safe Period Project’ at the Special Correctional Centre for Girls, Idi-Araba where the girls were trained on how to produce reusable sanitary pads for their personal use or sale. The Centre is located in Lagos State Nigeria and houses young girls below the age of 18 who are in conflict with the law. It was fulfilling for us to engage with the girls and to have met their needs.
The ‘Safe Period Project’ is an improvement of our 1st edition held in the female correctional centre Umuahia where over 300 women were trained.
With more projects like this, we intend to build a system where returned inmates can be easily integrated into society.
Myth 4: Restorative Justice is not suitable for all cases, it is only appropriate for minor offences.
Fact: Restorative Justice (RJ) has proven to be very appropriate for capital offences as it has been for minor offences. For minor offences, RJ has provided alternativs to custodian sentences and for capital offences, it has be used in conjunction with the mainstream Justice system to achieve great results.
Myth 2: Restorative justice is a get out of jail free card for the offender.
Fact: Restorative Justice (RJ) advocates for a healthy complement to and in certain cases of minor offences, an alternative to retributive justice. RJ does not do away with punishment, but advocates for restitution and repair which are punishments away from imprisonment in certain cases.