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Ghana’s cabinet is considering a community sentencing policy.
Information Minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah has said.
Some legal brains have proposed in the past that community service should be embedded in Ghanaian law as a means of controlling overcrowding and further decongesting the country’s prisons.
In the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, such calls have been renewed.
At a press conference on Thursday, Mr. Oppong Nkrumah revealed that the Cabinet is working on a community sentencing document that will make such options available.
“You know that in Ghana we do not have a community sentencing policy … If it is successful, when the Cabinet is [assessing] laws, all of these become options that can be shipped, “he said.
The community sentence would allow a convicted person to carry out some activities in the community as a form of punishment.
Ghana also has a Non-Custody Custody Bill that the Ghana Prison Service has advocated for swift approval.
The director of prisons in charge of operations, Isaac Kofi Egyir, said the service has made its contributions to the passage of the bill.
“We at the Ghana Prison Service have been strong advocates of swift passage of the law regulating non-custodial penalties. I think this is the right time when we all put our hands together to get this approved as quickly as possible to save the situation. We have made our contributions and have reached the appropriate authorities and work is being done on it. ”
Amid congestion concerns in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the President granted amnesty to 808 prisoners.
The category of convicts who benefited from the President’s gesture included first-time offenders, the seriously ill, prisoners on death row commuted to life imprisonment, prisoners serving life sentences commuted to 20 years in prison, and very old prisoners ranging from 70 years onwards.
— citinewsroom
