Acting DG of prisons service firm on introducing non-custodial sentencing for minor offenses

The acting Director General of the Ghana Prisons Service, Matilda Baffour-Awuah, is set to lead a campaign to ensure non-custodial sentencing to check congestion at the country's prisons.

Speaking exclusively to Joy News' Hannah Odame, the first woman Director General said she will shake up operations in prisons across the country, including speedy trial for inmates on remand.

Madam Mailda Baffour-Awuah believes non-custodial sentencing would allow pregnant women and nursing mothers to take care of themselves and their babies away from the difficult conditions in the prisons.

She said for the benefit of society, people who commit minor offences could be made to do community service instead of incarcerating them.

She was resolute about leading the campaign to reform the country's criminal justice system in close collaboration with other agencies.

“I am going to make sure, a lot of programmes are in place for prisoners to be able to have the needed skills to go out and settle and not come back,” she promised.

She said imprisonment was very “costly to the state” and hence the earlier Ghana took the path of other countries in terms of policy for correctional institutions the better.

She decried the situation where the courts put people in remand for years without their case being heard.

“The remand situation is what is causing the population explosion in our prisons today, what we want to do now is to coordinate and collaborate effectively with all stakeholders in the criminal justice system to ensure remand prisoners do not stay beyond the time of investigation”, she stated.