For possessing a pair of “Charlie Wote” slippers similar to what was found by the police at a crime scene, a man has been in remand prison for 17 years.
Ben Amedzro, now 65, told a visiting delegation of the Commission on Human
Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) to the Nsawam Medium Security prison that he was arrested in 1993 for alleged robbery because according to the police, “the charlie wote found at the robbery scene looked like mine”. The delegation was at the prison to assess the state of human rights there.
Amedzro caught the attention of the delegation led by the Commissioner, Justice Emile Short, while they were being conducted round the prisons on Monday.
Deputy Director in charge of the Nsawam Prison, Alex Ansong Agyepong, who briefed the delegation, identified overcrowding as a major problem.
He said the prison which was built in 1960, to accommodate 717 inmates, now has a population of 2,883, including 1,549 remand prisoners, who constitute about 53 per cent of the total lockup.
“The continuous swelling number of remand prisoners whose cases are either under investigation or awaiting trial is of grave concern to us,” he said.
Mr Ansong-Agyepong said appeals to the police and the judiciary to expedite action on the disposal of these remand cases have yielded little results.
He said the “Justice for All” programme introduced sometime last year to decongest the prisons, has resulted in the release of only 15 inmates, who had overstayed their warrants.
Mr Short remarked after the tour that the problem needs to be looked into for urgent solution.
He suggested that custodial sentences for minor offences could be converted to corporal punishment. He promised to take up Amedero’s case with the appropriate authorities for consideration.
He said the CHRAJ is still opposed to capital punishment which should be expunged from Ghana’s statute books.
Besides, he noted, Ghana has for a very long time not carried out any executions through the due process of law.
At the rehabilitation department of the prison, the superintendent in charge, Rev. J. Tetteh, expressed concern about the continuous stigmatisation of ex-convicts with requisite qualifications after completing various courses and trades while in prison.
“This situation is worrying because those holding the certificates are branded as ‘prison graduates’ who are still dangerous to society”.
Rev. Tetteh said very qualified people had been trained by the prisons service over the years, who could contribute meaningfully to national development.
He suggested that, the name prisons should be changed to “correctional facility” to reduce the stigmatisation of inmates who have successfully learned a trade.