THE JUSTICE FOR ALL PROGRAMME (NOVEMBER 2, 2007)

THE Minister of the Interior, Mr Kwamena Bartels, on Wednesday provided Ghanaians some insight into the amount of money that went into maintaining prisoners in the country’s prisons.
He told Parliament that ¢16 million would be spent on each of the 13,087 prisoners, both Ghanaians and foreigners, in all prisons across the country this year. In 2006, ¢10.4 million was spent on each prisoner.
The announcement initially came as an intriguing piece of news, considering the usual complaints that prisoners in the country were poorly catered for. However, any such shock is quickly dispelled by the explanation that the amount includes every cedi spent on the operations of the service, including salaries of prison officers, running cost of vehicles and ration.
Immediately, one begins to ask whether it is worth spending that much on prisoners some of whom may come out not in the least reformed but more hardened to pose greater threat to society because our penal system is retributive. What this means is that if the country decides to cater properly for prisoners to ensure that they come out as reformed citizens, then the country’s scarce resources will be spent on an unproductive sector of society.
The DAILY GRAPHIC believes that something drastic must be done to our justice delivery system to improve the conditions in the prisons and also reduce the number of prisoners who are virtually wasting away.
One first observation that strikes us is the belief that there may be many criminals in our prisons who may be better off without the prisons. For some criminals who may have indulged in petty thefts and squabbles, jail terms in prisons that are best described as terror sanctuaries may not be the best remedies.
The DAILY GRAPHIC believes that for such criminals, the option of providing community service or suspended sentences may turn out to be more effective and also help address the issue of the congestion in our prisons.
Essentially, punishment should not only serve as a deterrent but also work towards reforming offenders. Thus, it is important that in meting out punishment we do not opt for the easy way out rather than the most effective form of punishment for the various crimes, considering the psychological disposition of the offender.
When Daasebre Dwamena returned from jail in the UK, he had benefited from a short course in computer science and was awarded a certificate for his efforts. Truly, that is the standard we should be aiming at and that should start by ensuring that our prisons are not choked with first offenders who do not need to be there.
That is why the DAILY GRAPHIC welcomes with relief the ‘Justice for All’ programme that has been launched by the Ministry of Justice and the Attorney General’s Department. The programme, which is aimed at decongesting our prisons, has already resulted in the release of two prisoners.
It is refreshing that there are plans to replicate the programme throughout the country. We, however, wish to caution that the programme should not be a nine days’ wonder and those plans must be pursued to achieve the desired results.
The DAILY GRAPHIC urges the Ghana Prisons Service and the Ministry of the Interior to intensify their efforts and diversify the sources of funding to ensure that the ‘Justice for All’ programme and other noble initiatives are introduced in all our prisons to make them places of reformation.