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Traditional and Modern African Criminal Policies
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 May 2025
Extract
Under African customary law, the payment of blood-money by the offender to the injured has been the traditional means of redress for criminal wrongs. As we have elsewhere dealt with the matter (1), we need not here enter into the problem of whether traditional African law distinguishes between crimes and civil wrongs or between public and private wrongs. It is sufficient to state that it does, although various African societies (and, indeed, all others) have their own classifications of what are crimes and what are civil wrongs.
Information
- Type
- Premiere Partie: XXth International Course in Criminology
- Information
- International Annals of Criminology , Volume 10 , Issue 1: Non Institutional Treatment of Offenders , 1971 , pp. 325 - 334
- Copyright
- Copyright © 1971 International Society for Criminology
Footnotes
(*)
This is only a supplementary note to my commissioned article entitled «Traditional Forms of Public Participation in Social Defence», in International Review of Criminal Policy, No. 27, 1969, p. 18-24.
References
(1) See my Nature of African Customary Law, 1956, p. 110-119, Manchester University Press.
(2) I have dealt at some length with the problems of customary criminal law in my article, «Traditional Forms of Public Participation in Social Defence», in The International Review of Criminal Policy, No. 27, 1969, p. 18-24.
(3) Nature, op. cit., p. 300 for an example from Tanganyika.
(4) After Miss Margery Fry's efforts had led to the appointment by the Home Secretary of the Working Party whose report (Cmnd. 1406 of 1961) formed the basis of Cmnd. 2323 : Compensation for Victims of Crimes of Violence.
(5) The scheme for compensating victims of crimes of violence came into operation on August 1, 1964.
(6) See S. Schafer's «Restitution to Victims of Crime», Stevens and Sons Ltd., London, 1960.
(7) Ibid.
(8) 1961, All N.L.R. 400.
(9) 1970, S.C. 125/69. Delivered by the Supreme Court on March 6, 1970.
(10) See Balogun v. Balogun (1934, 2 W.A.C.A. 290).
(11) E.g., Children and Young Persons Act, Cap. 32 of the 1958 Edition of the Laws, s. 17.
(12) In the case of adults placed under probation, see s. 437 of C.P.A. (Cap. 43)
(13) Ibid., s. 23.
(14) Ibid., s. 25.
(15) Ibid., s. 28.
(16) A person apparently less than 9 years of age may neither be imprisoned nor fined : s. 432 of C.P.A. (Cap. 43).
(17) Ibid., s. 11; see also ss. 419 and 424 of Criminal Procedure Act (Cap. 43).
(18) Ibid., s. 20.
(19) S. 429 of the C.P.A. (Cap. 43).
(20) The system of suspended sentence was first introduced into England by the Criminal Justice Act, 1967, ss. 39-42.
(21) Criminal Procedure Act provides as follows in s. 300 : «On any summary trial the court may, whether the complaint be dismissed or not, bind over the complainant or defendant, or both or any of them, with or without a surety or sureties, to be of good behaviour, and may order any person so bound, in default of compliance with the order, to be imprisoned for any term not exceeding three months, with or without hard labour, in addition to any other punishment to which such person is liable. »
(22) C.P.A. (Cap. 43), s. 390 (3). Payment by instalments is permitted under s. 392. A court may order a fine to be recovered by distress and, in default, the offender may be sentenced to a term of imprisonment (s. 398).
(23) Cap. 43 of 1958 Edition of the Laws.
(24) S. 435.
(25) S. 436.
(26) S. 438.
(27) S. 440.