Ghana’s prisons are overcrowded by 4,651 inmates, representing 45.31 per cent congestion rate.
As of Monday, the total prison population was 14,916, surpassing the authorised capacity of 10,265.
The Ghana Prisons Service has, therefore, backed a new private member’s bill to amend the Criminal and Other Offences (Procedure) Act, 1960 (Act 30) to introduce an alternative sentencing regime for misdemeanours.
Sponsored by the Member of Parliament (MP) for Madina, Francis-Xavier Kojo Sosu, the bill was presented to the Clerk to Parliament on December 12 last year.
It is aimed at introducing community service and bond of good behaviour as alternatives to the traditional custodial sentences and fines for petty crimes, generally referred to as misdemeanours, where such offences are not already specified by law.
Data from the Ghana Prisons Service show that inmates comprised 14,732 males and 184 females.
Convict prisoners constitute 88.56 per cent of inmate population of 13,210, made up of 13,053 males and 157 females.
Remand prisoners are 1,245 (8.35 per cent), comprising 1,230 males and 15 females, while trial prisoners are 461 (3.09 per cent), made up of 449 males and 12 females.
In the ‘special category’, 180 persons are on death row, including six females; 88, including one female, on life sentence; 215 male juveniles at correctional centres; and 919 foreigners, made up of 871 males and 48 females in prison.
Commenting on the development, the Chief Public Relations Officer, Superintendent of Prisons, Abdul Latif Adamu, said the congestion puts pressure on the prison infrastructure.
He told the Ghanaian Times that it also affected the quality of reformation and rehabilitation programme in place, likewise the security and health of inmates and prison wardens.
“Every prison is built with a certain capacity, so when the capacity is exceeded, it becomes a burden on the infrastructure. It also influences the way we keep security in the facility as well as prison-associated programmes. Overcrowding is not something that is desirable in a prison establishment,” he said.
Supt Adamu said overcrowding promoted the spread of communicable diseases, such as tuberculosis and chicken pox, with prison wardens not spared.
He said a special hospital for the prison system would help provide dedicated care to inmates and officers, prevent the risk involved in the transportation of inmates to hospitals, such as escape and attacks from the public, and prevent stigmatisation of inmates.
He said the non-custodial sentencing regime would decongest the prison because some inmates committed misdemeanours and were seen to be of less risk to the public, and so non-custodian punishment would help enhance prison security for rehabilitation efforts.
Supt Adamu said the amendment would help reduce contamination, a situation whereby people who come to prison for minor offences learn from seasoned high-risk inmates advanced ways of committing high-level offences or high-degree felonies.
Touching on feeding rate, which has been GH₵ 1.80 since 2011, he said there were discussions to increase it but in the meantime the Prison Service was supporting the feeding with produce from its farms.
BY JONATHAN DONKOR