The Lagos State Government on Monday said it has recorded about 12, 120 rape cases in the last four years, adding that no fewer than 140 names of sex offenders have been recorded in the Sex Offenders’ Register.
This information was disclosed by the Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr Ade Ipaye, on Monday at Alausa, Ikeja. He further stated that between January 2014 and February 2015, 3,083 offenders were made to engage in community services as a form of punishment.
He said the strategy was taken to congest the prisons across the nation.
He affirmed, “I am pleased to inform you that the non-custodian sentencing has
continued to wax stronger in demonstration of the fact that the criminal justice system does not need to incarcerate offenders in order to be effective. With the community service option available to judges and magistrates, convicted offenders do not need to be sent to prison for every minor infraction of the law.”
Ipaye also stated that out of the 795 police investigation files sent to the Directorate of Public Prosecutions’ office for legal advice in the last one year, the unit had treated 716 files. This, he said constituted 90.1 per cent, adding that the others are still being worked upon.
His words, “During the same period, the DPP engaged in the prosecution of 1,069 criminal cases. This figure includes the 786 cases which are currently being prosecuted at the federal and the state high courts, as well as 54 and 11 at the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court, respectively.”
The Attorney-General stressed that the State government has opened a Crime Data Register, meant to take down records of crimes and its perpetrators electronically.
He further explained that the effort was meant to demonstrate the government’s resolve in using technology to eradicate crime.
“CDR is an electronic repository of information about suspects and offenders who pass through any of the prisons in Lagos State.
“Currently, the CDR is a robust system in terms of its IT infrastructure and functionality. We now have 62,789 unique records in the system, of which about 40,000 have biometric and fingerprint details,”Ipaye stated.
He also disclosed that the Office of the Public Defender, the agency responsible for providing legal aid services to residents of the State has processed more than 15,000 cases at no cost.
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