JUVENILE SAFEGUARD AND CULPABILITY IN NIGERIA: RECONCILING RIGHTS, ACCOUNTABILITY, AND REHABILITATION IN A DIGITAL AGE

Abstract

Nigeria’s juvenile justice system stands at a precarious intersection. While reformist legislation such as the Child Rights Act (CRA) mirrors a strong normative pledge to child protection and rehabilitation, constant structural, institutional, and socio-cultural challenges are barriers to its effective implementation. This work contributes to the ongoing efforts to reform Nigeria's juvenile justice system and promote the well-being and rehabilitation of its young people. It argues that Nigeria’s juvenile justice system is marked by a structural inconsistency between its rehabilitative legal standards and its punitive working realities. The pressure is further intensified by federalism, plural legal traditions, inadequate institutional capacity, and the emergence of modern technology-driven juvenile offending. Employing doctrinal analysis of domestic and international legal frameworks, as well as critical examination of institutional practices, this work examines the connection between juvenile safeguard and culpability. Findings show that there are traditional challenges confronting the criminal justice administration in Nigeria, such as overcrowding in correctional facilities, inadequate access to education and rehabilitation programs. The work concludes that Juvenile and Family Courts should be provided for, at least one in every local government of the Federation of Nigeria to be manned by trained judges and specialized staff, and the jurisdiction of these courts should be well and unequivocally defined, with emphasis on rehabilitative justice, reintegration, educational support, use of more non-custodial sentences. And that there is a need for more well-equipped borstal institutions, approved schools, and remand homes with modern gadgets that meet psychological, educational, and health standards.