The Commonwealth Human Right Initiative (CHRI) of Ghana is calling for the decriminalization of petty offenses in the country.
Speaking in an interview, Mina Mensah, Director of the Africa Office of the CHRI, suggested these offenses be tackled differently. She noted that the reason for her outfits fight to decriminalize petty offenses is due to the fact that, people are actually imprisoned for such offenses.
“In our law, the minimum for misdemeanor is zero to three years but unfortunately, our court tend to go beyond the one year to 3 years and then it creates a problem in the system.”
Mina Mensah
Giving an account of the number of inmates involved in these kind of sentencing, she indicated that they have quite a large number.
“It is quite a lot. Unfortunately, the Ghana Prisons Service cannot really give us the total number because normally, by the time they give us the number and we go back, they would have probably served part of their sentence before they are released so it is difficult to get an accurate number.
“They are quite a lot ranging from those who assaulted people,;people who couldn’t pay fine or those who were driving without license among others.”
Mina Mensah
Mina Mensah further noted that,; inmates who were sentenced due to their inability to pay court fines can however be discharged upon payment is made. She therefore urged the public to help in getting people arrested for petty offenses out of these prisons.
“We would wish that a lot more people will engage in that.”
Mina Mensah
Victim list being compiled
She also indicated that they are still compiling a list of people who are behind bars for committing these petty offenses to enable them to be freed. She disclosed that it is being compiled according to the prisons across the country and she believes that a collaboration with the Ghana prison will help bring out the victims of such sentences.
Touching on reforming the inmates, she intimated that there is little her outfit can do in that regard since the system in Ghana does not reform the inmates but rather have some of them coming out as hardened criminals.
“We agree that prisons are suppose to reform. Unfortunately our prisons as they are now are unable to reform anybody in there. And so, the best we can do is to ensure that those who committed minor offenses do not end up being hardened criminals and being so bitter that when they come out it becomes another issue.”
Mina Mensah
Moreover, the CHRI, she said is putting together ways to help reform these prisoners when they rather come out. She added that CHRI is also engaging stakeholders to make this possible.
Touching on the call for non custodial sentencing in the country,;Mina Mensah mentioned that a lot of work has been done on it. She was however of the view that the process involved in bring the call to fruition has been too slow.
“For me, I think as usual,;we are dragging our feet as a country that all kinds of challenges are existing. I think that on the part of authorities they should have conversations around the issue.”
Mina Mensah
