The Legal Resources Centre (LRC) is calling on government to expedite action on the passage of the Community Service Sentencing Bill into law to decongest Ghana’s prisons.
According to the LRC, Ghana’s prisons were built to contain over 9,000 inmates, but currently harbours over 14,000 prisoners, exposing them to various human rights violations.
Speaking to Citi News in Bolgatanga at a sensitization workshop on Ghana’s case tracking system, LRC Rule of Law Specialist, Enock Jengre, said, the bill when passed into law, will not only decongest the prisons but also save the country some money.
“Let’s look at using other means of sentencing regime like the community service. There is a bill in the pipeline and that bill seeks to ensure that persons who commit certain offences that are not criminal in nature or grievous or that, the punishment would have been a maximum of 3 years, instead of putting them in prison give them community work to do and develop the community.
“Remand prisoners are also part of it, so in the event that they sit on their matter and the maximum punishment that they were to be given is 3 years imprisonment give them community work to do under the supervision of community officers. And if the community officers don’t do their work well the bill has punishment for them so, we are calling on the Attorney General to expedite action on this bill, present it to Parliament for its passage into law to decongest our prisons”.
Mr. Jengre, also bemoaned the state violation of the rights of prisoners to quality health care, shelter and food, and impressed on government to ensure the dignity and rights of prisoners are protected.
He described as unfortunate the daily feeding amount of GH¢1.80 per prisoner, coupled with the horrendous prison facilities and sleeping arrangements of inmates.
Mr. Jengre appealed to the government and stakeholders to work in synergy at improving the living conditions of prisoners.