Socio-Economic Welfare Measures of Penitentiary Inmates in the Bamenda Central Prison (Cameroon), 1992-2013: A Historical Assessment

The welfare and rehabilitation of inmates constitutes a fundamental right which has been greatly
slowed down due to insufficient means and neglect. Inmate care does not only require state intervention but
also non–governmental organizations, civil society actors, the international community, individuals and the
community. In a bid to elicit inmates to appropriate skills and entrepreneurial capacities relevant for their
eventual re-insertion into the community, the government and creative agencies in a collective enterprise
federated strategies to reach that end. This paper examines the government efforts alongside that of creative
agencies in leveraging inmates from their erstwhile „disconnected‟ public life to active agents of socioeconomic development. It posits that, government endeavors to address the welfare needs of inmates were
lofty but half-hearted. The investigation made appeal to primary and secondary data which were coordinated
and analyzed thematically following the qualitative research method. The findings revealed that in
consonance with national and international prescriptions, the Cameroon government provided some measure
of welfare assistance to inmates. It also emerged that the increasing number of inmates became over bearing
on the resources that the State was allocating for penitentiary welfare. It was also uncovered that in order to
mitigate the pressure on the government, inmates improvised and exhibited sterling creativity that reduced the
precarious welfare conditions. In the same vein charitable social holds complemented the humanitarian
assistance to the inmates. From the bases of these findings, the study concludes that the need to provide socioeconomic welfare assistance to prison inmates was an inalienable right prescribed by the State and contained
in international instruments. It further sums up that the provision of welfare demands was a collective
enterprise that had the State as the principal regulator.