No fewer than 383 inmates out of 2143 warrants reviewed in the five Custodial Centres and Sapele Remand Home in Delta State have been set free by the Chief Judge of the state, Justice Marshal Umukoro.

Breakdown of the figure showed that at Warri 149 freed and six granted bailout of 787 warrants reviewed; Sapele out of the 252 reviewed 77 were pardoned and two granted bail; in Kwale 42 released and four granted bail, 265 warrants were reviewed in Agbor out of which 38 freed and four granted bail, and 77 inmates released with two granting bail at Ogwashi-Uku Medium Security Custodial Centre.

Cases of the inmates were reviewed when the chief judge visited the facilities as part of efforts to decongest prisons across the state.

While advising parents to monitor their children closely and conduct adequate profile of the friends they keep, the Chief Judge admonished youths to avoid bad company, noting that 80 per cent of inmates whose ages were between 17 and 25 in Ogwashi-Uku prison were from outside the State.

“Like as I always say, it shows that our family system is being threatened; many parents are not doing their homework, ” he stressed.

Decrying the adverse consequences of complainants who prematurely withdrew from rape cases, Justice Umukoro said:

“It is unfortunate that most of the victims are being pressurized to settle and agreed to compound the offence; it is a drawback on the advocacy by FIDA, our women Lawyers and other NGO’s who are advocating that people charged with such offences should be tried.”

He admonished Lawyers who represent inmates to plead for mercy rather than having the mindset of inquiring into their guilt or innocence, even as he implored them to exercise discretion in order to balance the scale of justice.

Justice Umukoro who refused to release or grant bail to inmates charged with capital offences such as kidnapping, murder and rape, noted that such heinous crimes were rampant in the society.

One of the inmates granted bail on health ground was one 53-year-old Benneth Madubugini from Okpanam diagnosed of glaucoma while Emeka Chukwuma, 19, who had been in custody since 2017 for robbing a victim the sum of eight hundred and twenty naira was also pardoned by the Chief Judge, stressing that it amounted to economic wastage on the Federal Government.