Ghana’s prison overcrowding hit 55.49 per cent as the prison population
currently is 15,461 instead of 9,945 standard capacity for prisons, the
Prisons Public Relations Officer, Superintendent of Prisons, Vitalis
Aiyeh has disclosed.
He expressed worry about the situation stating that it promoted
infections, spread of communicable disease, contamination and poor
sanitation, among others.
The PRO said this in an interview with the Ghanaian Times in Accra
yesterday, enumerating some of the contributory factors of congestion in
the country’s prisons as high sentences and absence of alternative
sentence such as community service.
Supt. Aiyeh said as part of efforts to reduce the congestion, the
Justice for all Programme (JEFAP) was introduced in 2007 and 4,432 had
so far benefited from it.
Supt Aiyeh said the various prisons health posts had been upgraded to
hospitals with doctors and 50 nurses to improve the health needs of the
inmates.
He said to reintegrate prisoners into the society, the inmates were
engaged in vocational skills such as carpentry, aquaculture, and farming
among others.
The PRO appealed to the government to increase the feeding fee which was currently GH¢1.80 pesewas daily for inmates.
“The feeding is one of the challenging factors, each inmate is given
GH¢1.80 for three square meals daily which is inadequate and this has
continued for the past 10 years,” he said.
Supt Aiyeh urged the public not to stigmatise ex-convicts but accept
them into the society adding “When we abandon them in the society, they
feel rejected and they go back to the same crimes they committed.”
