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18.07.2011 Editorial

The state has a duty to feed people in custody

By Ghanaian Chronicle
The state has a duty to feed people in custody
18.07.2011 LISTEN

On our front page today, we have published the harrowing experience of an iced water seller who was arrested and fined GH¢600 by the Accra Traffic and Sanitation Court. The poor woman could not afford the fine on the spot, and had to be detained until it was paid.

Georgina Owusu was sent to the Ministries Police Station in Accra. She spent three days in police custody, before being moved to the Nsawam Medium Security Prisons.

Throughout the three days, Georgina was not fed by the state that had locked her up. If she had not been lucky to have come by five Ghana cedis tucked somewhere in her dress pocket, she would have seriously suffered from the pangs of hunger.

The poor woman is not alone in the dilemma of feeding oneself while in police custody. Apparently, it is the norm in all police stations in the country. The Chronicle is not amused by this development. We would like to believe that once it is the state that confines a person to custody, it should be the responsibility of the state to look after the inmate.

We do not believe the state would score any high marks in this human rights disaster. If the state is not resourceful enough to cater for inmates in police custody, we are of the view that the state would not have any right to confine human beings into the degradation of going hungry on the sentence of a court of competent jurisdiction

We are advocating for some sort of resources to be allocated to the various police stations to cater for food for inmates in their custody. On the other hand, if the state so lacks the resources to cater for basic food for those in custody, then there should be a mechanism for releasing culprits, especially, those whose offences are minor, while arrangements are made to get them to atone for their crimes.

We do not believe that every offence should call for the detention of the individual(s) involved. The Chronicle is appealing to the justice system to take a second look at how custodian sentences are imposed on people, especially, in the lower courts.

We are uncomfortable with the way and manner magistrates especially, pronounce custodian sentences for crimes, some of which may not warrant keeping offenders under lock and key.

We are inviting civil society organisations dealing with human rights issues to interest themselves in this aspect of our criminal justice system. A good number of Ghanaians are languishing in jail for offences, for which judgment might not even have been given.

In our constitutional democracy, we do not need to treat offenders as if they should not exist. 54 years after self-rule, and nearly two decades into the Fourth Republic, this society needs to streamline how human beings are treated by our justice system.

Our economy may be fragile, but it does not mean that we should keep human beings locked up in the various police stations and deny them their basic right to eat.

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