• History and efficacy of punishment. • Philosophies of punishment. • Historical overview of institutional corrections. • The general nature of the prison community. • Classification, reception and case work. • Prison labor. • Release from prison. • Probation. • Theoretical framework of the prisons system. • Purposes and goals of the criminal sanction. • The choice of a sanction. • Issues on capital punishment (death penalty). • Sentencing practices. • The inmates social code and functions. • Re-socialization within walls. • The pains of imprisonment. • Prisonization. • Standard minimum rules for the treatment of prisoners. • Limitation of treatment in prisons. • Classification as part of treatment in the prison system. • Group therapy with offenders. • Modification of the criminal value system. • Evolution and philosophies of prisons system in Nigeria. • Penological policies of the Nigerian criminal justice system. • Penal practices in Nigeria. • Punishment as a deterrent: how effectiveness has it been? (a case of Nigerian environment). • Awaiting trial and holding charge in Nigeria criminal justice system. • Prisoner’s rights and civil disabilities of ex-convicts in Nigeria. • Nigerian prison after care services. • The advocacy for deinstitutionalization of sentences in Nigeria. • Various recommendations on prisons reform.