Prisons in Anglophone Cameroon: Rehabilitation and Reintegration of Prisoners

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 implem