Ghana Politics News-The Member of Parliament for Manhyia-North, Hon Collins Owusu Amankwah has called for a targeted approach by government to resourcing and rehabilitating the country’s prisons so as to make it habitable for inmates.
The current conditions at the prisons, the MP noted is deplorable and one that makes the motive of reforming inmates almost impossible.
Speaking on Hello Fm last Friday to Samuel Joachim Bokeem, one of the morning show hosts, Hon Amankwah expressed sadness at the congestion at the country’s prisons.
He called for drastic measures to properly address the growing trend of congestion at particularly the Kumasi Central Prisons, Amanfrom and Manhyia prisons in the Ashanti Region.
‘’It is important to make all of us to get this clear that everyone of us is a potential prisoner and therefore it is imperative on our part to make the prisons habitable for those who through unfortunate circumstances find themselves there’’, Hon Amankwah posited.
REFORMS:
Hon Amankwah, who is the Vice-Chairman for the Committee of Defense and Security in Parliament called for reforms from the Judiciary to make more of their sentences non-custodial.
This, he noted will help to rid the prisons the congestion it is perennially subjected to.
The legislator asked for support for prison officers to enable them carry out their core mandate and responsibility.
This mandate, the youthful MP noted is to ensure they help in reforming inmates that are brought into custody.
‘’It is important that government as well as stakeholders of our security system provide the needed support to prison officials and officers so they can focus on their primary mandate which is to train and reform inmates to become better persons’’, the Manhyia North MP stressed.
MEASURES:
The youthful legislator, as part of measures to tackling the congestion at the prisons has called for the setting up of more correctional centers in the country.
This, he stressed will free up spaces at the main prisons across the country and help to allow proper ventilation to occur at the cells.
‘’I suggest that rather than allow our prisons to be crowded to the point that ventilation becomes a problem we build more reform centers to ensure inmates come out from their terms better people than what may have occasioned them to go into the prisons in the first place’’,
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