In the past three years, the Medium Security Custodial Centre in Billiri, Gombe State Command, said it has empowered not less than 339 inmates with various vocational skills.
Mr Christopher Jen, the centre’s Deputy Controller disclosed this to newsmen in Billiri, the headquarters of the Billiri Local Government Area, on Friday, March 26 2021.
According to Jen, 339 inmates have been qualified in skills learning and 106 in literacy, post-literacy, and extramural classes since 2018.
He added that 94 of the inmates who received vocational training have been released, 124 have graduated, and 121 are still receiving training.
He also explained that the inmates were given the opportunity to choose vocations that they were interested in, as “this is a way of ensuring that no one is compelled to do anything he does not want to do.”
“Learning is simple once you choose your vocation because you will be self-motivated,” he said.
Jen noted that the aim of the training was to change inmates’ minds as well as motivate them, in compliance with the correctional service’s mandate of inmate reformation, recovery, and reintegration.
“We had to emphasize vocational training because the crime rate is related to a shortage of employment in some way.
“The majority of the inmates here are between the ages of 18 and 23. They’re meant to be useful. When they leave this facility, if there are no jobs for them, society will not be at peace.
“There would be an uptick in violence if we do not assist them with this vocational training as a means of survival. Providing jobs is a key component of lowering crime rates.
“Government alone cannot do it; therefore, the service deemed it appropriate to correct, as well as motivate them through various skills programs on which they can rely,” he said.
Jen said the inmates were learning knitting and design, laundry, aluminium pot making, construction, barbering, carpentry, bag making, hand fan weaving, tailoring, cap making, cosmetology, tie and dye, and literacy.
Jen appealed to the Gombe state government to help the programme by assisting qualified inmates with starter packs while noting that the main problem was getting funding to buy materials for the inmates’ training.
To have a positive effect on society, the deputy controller urged youths in the state to avoid criminal activity and participate in constructive endeavours through the acquisition of vocational skills.
He also urged young people to avoid substance addiction in any form, urging them to “be innovative positively and individually to contribute to our country’s growth, which can only happen when youths learn skills”, he advised.
