By Akwanwanna Nnaemeka C.
The study examined the Prison Reforms and management in Nigeria and its impact on the welfare of inmates with emphasis on Enugu prison. Nigerian prisons under the military leadership lost its correctional values and become more or less a miniature hell and far from what is obtained in a modern society. The state of the prisons attracted both national and international condemnation and upon the advent of the fourth Republic, the Federal Government in 2001 initiated a Reform roadmap for Nigerian prisons. Prison congestion was identified as the bedrock of the prison crisis. In this regard, the problem became how to identify among the various reform programmes, the one that most positively impacted the inmates, particularly Enugu prison inmates. The data for the study were generated from primary and secondary sources. From the data generated, the study discovered that the reform programmes to a large extent positively impacted the prison authority and the inmates, particularly Enugu prison inmates. The study concluded that caution should be taken against corruption which is the bane of development in Nigeria and recommended retraining of Nigerian police, crime prevention, community service among others as ways of sustaining the reform programmes.