Cabinet has asked the Attorney General’s (AG’s) Department to introduce a legislation that will seek to expand the scope of sentencing for petty offenders in the move to decongest the country’s prisons.
The Deputy Minister of the Interior, Mr James Agalga, who made this known to the Daily Graphic in Accra, said accordingly, the Ministry of the Interior, the AG’s Deparment and the Chief Justice, were collaborating to find ways of decongesting the prisons by resorting to non-custodial sentencing.
He was speaking on moves to decongest the prisons.
Mr Agalga underscored the need for changes to be made in the prisons, stressing that the current prison situation was worrying, particularly the issue of congestion confronting the prisons.
Congestion/ jailbreaks Mr Agalga said the congestion in the prisons was partly responsible for the recent incidence of suspects escaping from lawful custody in the Volta and Ashanti regions.
The Ghana Police Service last month confirmed the escape of seven suspects from a police cell at Denu in the Volta Region. In the Ahafo Ano North District in the Ashanti Region, two suspects in police custody also escaped from police cells.
The police in the region has launched a manhunt for the escapees.
In February this year, some inmates of the Kumasi Central Prison attempted to escape during a fire outbreak at the facility, but the police foiled the attempt.
Negligence Mr Agalga also said, negligence on the part of some police officers on duty at the time of the incidents, helped to make the escapes successful and underscored the need for a holistic view to be taken of the incident.
While calling for reforms in the penal system, the deputy minister said non-custodial sentencing should be looked at as a means to decongest the prisons and expressed the hope that the Justice for All Programme, would help to decongest the prisons.
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