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21.07.2014 General News

Survey reveals widespread prisoner neglect across the country

By Myjoyonline.com
Survey reveals widespread prisoner neglect across the country
21.07.2014 LISTEN

A survey of Prisons across the country by the Auditor General has found widespread prisoner neglect with an average of 48 prisoners forced to share one toilet.

With the exception of the newly constructed Ankaful Maximum Security Prison, the Auditor General found that all the other prisons had torn window nets, falling ceilings and leaking roofs of prison dormitories and cells.

Auditors inspected prison infirmaries and found that they were without drugs to treat ailments such as malaria and skin infections that are common among prison inmates.

Also with the exception of Nsawam and Ankaful Maximum Prisons where medical doctors do go there to perform minor surgical operations on affected inmates, the rest of the prison facilities visited do not have medical doctors assigned to prison facilities.

The audit team also noted that, apart from the Ankaful Prison Camp that is managed by a trained nurse, all the other infirmaries were managed by health assistants.

Auditors also found that the prisons are still congested making it difficult for the Ghana Prisons Service to do classification of prisoners according to the class of offence.

In spite of the difficulties found with accommodation and general poor prison facilities, the auditors established that at the Ankaful prison only two of the six flats are being utilized.

The four remaining blocks have no prisoners occupying them.

There is one major positive however, the remand population has reduced from 4285 to 2,979 because of the work of the justice for all programme.

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