PM Express: Prisons could be anbody's second potential home – Prisons Service

The Ghana Prisons Service (GPS) says the notion among Ghanaians that the prison is meant for a different group of people is false.

Public Relations Officer at GPS, Vitalis Aryee, said considering the reasons that resulted in someone’s imprisonment are still available, anyone at all could end up in the prisons.

“Prisons could be anybody's second potential home,” he said.

Vitalis Aryee disclosed this on the MultiTV’s news analysis programme, PM EXPRESS, on June 22 while reacting to Joynews’ Seth Kwame Boateng documentary ‘Left-to-Rot.’

The documentary which was premiered at the New Court Complex in Accra is a follow up to the journalist’s 'Locked and Forgotten' documentary which focused on the poor state of Ghana’s prison.

A section of Prison Officers during the premiering of Seth Kwame Boateng's 'Left-to-Rot' documentary.

Commenting on the condition of the prisoners, Aryee said: “If not for the law you can call us[prison officers] sadist [because] we see these things every day.”

He explained government needs to take a second look at the condition the prisoners and officers live in, noting it could result in the spread of infectious diseases in the country because the prisons are tight and congested with little space for breathing.

Private legal practitioner, Martin Dogbe, was unforgiving when he talked about the maltreatment of prisoners in Ghanaian prisons.

He stated the nation “will need to have a critical mass of people to bring about the needed change.”

Chief Justice, Georgina Wood [left] interacting with Seth Kwame Boateng [right], while Deputy Interior Minister, James Agalga looks on.

Dogbe, who happened to be the man who took the Chief Justice to court over issues of non-bailable offenses, said what is happening in the prisons and what the citizens are made to believe about the prisons are different.

Though “We will acknowledge some people who are doing something about the situation, we are not doing enough as a people,” he said.

“Hundreds of people are packed like sardine in the prisons and this phenomenon didn’t start today,” he revealed

Watch full video here:

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Austin Brako-Powers | Email: [email protected]