Community service will reduce the prison population – ACS

General News on Tuesday, November 27, 2018

Source: ghananewsagency.org

2018-11-27

Mr. Micheal Zewu Glover, President of the Volta Regional Branch of the Ghana Bar Association (GBA), said community service was the key to decongesting prisons and correctional centers in the country.

"The community service, once enshrined in the law, will serve to satisfy the community's repulsion against the people's crime and to significantly reduce the prison population," he said.

Mr. Glover was addressing a regional stakeholder forum on the Non-Conservative Sentencing Bill in Ho organized under the auspices of the Ghana Bar Association. the Foundation "Perfector Of Sentiments" (POS) and the Ministry of the Interior.

"The absence of sentences other than capital punishment, imprisonment, detention or a fine resulted in significant overcrowding and congestion in prisons", and prompted legal practitioners and civil society to reposition itself and advocate for non-custodial sentences.

Mr. Glover asked them to work towards the early adoption of the Non-custodial sentences bill, to end prison overcrowding and promote the well-being and reform of prisoners.

He said the need to institutionalize community service in Ghana was long overdue and that increased awareness of the bill among criminal justice actors and the general public was essential for its adoption.

The forum is part of regional commitments to educate stakeholders on the draft law and its goals in the areas of justice sector reform, and to collect input from stakeholders to improve the quality of the justice sector. bill and encourage its adoption.

Mr. Jonathan Osei Owusu, executive director of the POS Foundation, said that stakeholders should help to define the "most important" policies under the draft law, and to ensure that minor and minor offenses flooding the justice system does not clog the penitentiary institutions.

The Executive Director stated that petty criminals were hardening themselves in prisons and leading a life of crime more ruthless against stigmatization.

He added that Ghana should set the tone for other countries and call for more presidential amnesties, also to help keep prison populations at a low level.

Moses Asampoa of the regional office of the Attorney General of the Volta said detention conditions in the country violated prisoners' right to dignity, adding that the law must pass before the "irrelevance".

"It is time for us to take steps to stop dehumanizing our peers," he added.

The VDP Foundation has drafted a sentencing law that does not fall under the custody of the Chief Justice, which added that it must complement existing sentencing provisions in the area of ​​sentencing. the Criminal Offenses and Others Act 1960 (Act 30).

"The bill should be seen as adding other forms of punishment, such as community service orders, to existing ones, and should therefore be presented as a draft law on criminal offenses and other offenses". ) (Additional amendments to the sentence) to promote the means of action. reduce the use of imprisonment as a form of punishment for low-grade offenses, "said Chief Justice Sophia Akuffo at a multi-party conference on the bill in Accra.

The non-custodial sentence or the substitution penalty is a sentence imposed by a court not involving imprisonment; it includes the ordinance of work of general interest, the probation order, the supervision order (parole), the drug screening and the treatment order.

The POS Foundation proposes that the implementation of successful models used in African countries applying non-custodial sentences, such as Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.