An official of the Medium Security Custodial Centre in Kogi State has urged the public to stops Stigmatisation of ex-convicts, saying that it had continued to create a negative impact on those who have served their term and ready to be integrated back into society.

Oni Umoru, officer in charge of the centre, said this while speaking with newsmen on the escalating crime wave in the country on Thursday in Ankpa.

“I personally blame the public sector, key political office holders and organisations that would rather have nothing to do with ex-convicts or disallow them from occupying positions of responsibility in the public sphere.

“Ex-convicts have equal rights to vote and are therefore eligible like other members of the society to occupy positions without discrimination.

“I, therefore, appeal to the society to accommodate and embrace them (ex-convicts) and accord them their rightful positions in the society as morally renewed, reformed and remoulded citizens,” he said.

The correctional officer attributed the high crime rate to moral decadence due to broken homes and faulty family upbringing.

He said the development could also be traced to a high level of indiscipline in homes and inadequate parenting.

Mr Umoru said that studies had revealed that 70 per cent of convicts and suspected criminals in correctional facilities across the country were products of broken homes.

He noted that unless the family units were sensitised, remodelled and reformed to undertake their divine role as a moral compass, the fight against crimes and criminality in the country would be futile.

According to him, if the family foundation is faulty, the tendency for the emergence of a corrupt society is high.

He said that the only recipe to reduce the commission of crimes and indulgence in criminal activities was for the family to restore discipline in child upbringing.

Mr Umoru stressed that correctional centres are doing their best to make society free from crime through their correctional and reformatory roles.

“The correctional centres serve as the last resort for all security organisations in their effort to rid the society of crime through their key roles in capacity building, character moulding and reformation,” he said.

(NAN)