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Human rights activist, Lawyer Francis-Xavier Sosu, has called for an immediate consideration of decriminalising and declassifying petty offences to help decongest prison’s wards in the country.
According to him, the course will served as a ground to warrant human rights of the Ghanaian populace.
He believes Ghana’s political independence must not only translate into economic independence but also served as a socio-cultural independence by way of having laws that are relevant to its peculiar situations and experiences.
Lawyer Xavier Sosu added that as the country celebrate its 65th anniversary after post independence, it is necessary as a country to “reflect on the need to decriminalise petty offences that are clearly colonial relics which remain on our statute books.”
Citing a report by the Amnesty International, he said a prison in Ghana built to accommodate 700 people, now houses approximately 4000 inmates — almost six times the number of people.
It further revealed all of the prison wards in Ghana combined should house not more than 8000 people but currently it accommodate “more than 14,000 inmates.”
The situation, Francis-Xavier Sosu, said, has made conditions of Ghana’s prison “amount to gross violations of human rights” instead of its serving as a place of “reforms” to offenders.
In a research report by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), the lead organisation advocating for decriminalisation of petty crimes, on how people convicted for petty offences live with hardened criminals.
“Imagine a person convicted for stealing a bunch of plantain to feed his hungry family pleading guilty to stealing and sentenced to serve in the same prison with hardened criminals who may have committed violent crimes like multiple robberies. Instead of the prison reforming such persons, they get out as destroyed persons.” The CHRI observed.
On this count, the Lawyer says has become a clear indication of the current state of the laws with regards to petty crimes and the fact that offences are not classified amounts to criminalising poverty and an unpardonable violation of the rights of less privileged Ghanaians.
For this reason, the MP for Madina, is advocating that as a Country; “it is necessary that we reform our criminal justice system to reflect current realities and to respond to the various human rights violations of our prisons and other holding facilities”
“In conclusion, we must take critical look at our Criminal and other Offences Act, 1960 (Act 29) since most of the petty crimes contained in it are part of our colonial baggage that we must let go off” he stated.
