Chief Executive Officer of Crime Check Foundation, Ibrahim Oppong Kwarteng, has called for the passage of the non-custodial bill.

According to him, the bill which has been redundant for years with the failure of successive governments to pass it, has led to the illegal imprisonment of the poor in society.

Mr Kwarteng further explained that this action has led to overcrowding in the prisons.

In a bid to help de-populate the prisons, he advocated for the rights of low-class people who appeared to be targeted by outmoded colonial laws.

He made this revelation at a Crime Check Foundation (CCF) and Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA). The project was dubbed, “Decriminalizing Vagrancy Laws and Advocacy”. Essentially, the workshop held aimed at empowering drifters through education in their basic rights and responsibilities.

Appeal to government on custodial bill

Additionally, Mr. Kwarteng appealed to Parliament and the Attorney General to expedite work on the Non-Custodial Bill.

“It’s been in Parliament for 7-years. The last time I had audience with the Minister of Justice and Attorney General is about 6-weeks ago, we paid a courtesy call on him. He said they are going to pass it before the tenure of this Parliament expires.

“They’ve been paying lip service to these laws”.
Ibrahim Kwarteng

The crime prevention advocacy organization has series of projects including the petty offenders, health check series, and philanthropy series.

Currently, Ghana is among 22 countries in Africa that penalize vagrants while equipping Police with powers of enforcement of vagrancy laws.

That notwithstanding, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights in an opinion ruling held that, vagrancy laws violate the rights of individuals. Following this, it noted that the laws contravene the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

The court defined “vagrancy laws as laws which criminalize the status of individuals as being poor, homeless or unemployed as opposed to specific reprehensible acts”.

Relevance of non-custodial laws in justice delivery

In justifying the relevance of non-custodial laws in the country, Mr. Kwarteng explained that, “with the non-custodial law, our streets would be clean”.

“[With] Planting for Food and Jobs, we could commit lots of petty offenders to plant”.
Ibrahim Kwarteng

Additionally, he noted that they have the provision of parole and others, where someone will work instead of the person going to jail.

“The person will be committed to community service. So, the objective is to decongest the prison”.
Ibrahim Kwarteng

On her part, a Private Legal practitioner at Derry and Co, Doris Bangful, revealed that the absence of non-custodial sentence means the poor and vagrants are imprisoned. This, she explained, increases overcrowding in the prisons.

“We are also talking of alternative forms of punishment as opposed to imprisonment; we can have non-custodial. For now, there’s nothing like that, so either imprisonment or fine and we have noticed that most of the victims of these offences are the poor and the homeless. Invariably, they are unable to pay the fine and they end up serving prison sentences and we already know the situation in the prisons”.
Doris Bangful