THE BENIN PRISON SERVICES: AN ASSESSMENT OF WOMEN INCARCERATION AND REHABILITATION FROM 1979-2019

SUMMARY

The concept of rehabilitation rest on the assumption that criminal behavior is caused by some factors.¹ this perspective does not deny that people makes choices to break the law, but it does not assert that these choices are not a matter of pure “free will”.² Instead, the decision to commit a crime is held to be determined, or at least heavily influenced by a person’s social surroundings, psychological development or biological makeup.³

People are not all the same but rather are different. These “individual differences” shapes how people behave, including whether they are likely to break the law. When people are characterized by various criminogenic risk factors” such as lack of parental love and supervision, exposure to delinquent peers, the internalization of antisocial values, or an impulsive temperament, they are more likely to become involved in crime than people not having these experiences and traits.⁴