A-G�s Reform Programme To Cover Prisons

As part of making efficient the Criminal Justice System in the country, the Attorney- General�s Department is about to undertake Legal Services Reform Programme to involve its major stakeholders, which include the Ghana Prisons Service, the courts, and the Police Service, for effective criminal case management. The Minister of Justice and Attorney-General, Mrs Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong, revealed this when she paid a working visit to the Ghana Prisons Service Headquarters at Cantonments in Accra. The Controller-General of Prisons, Ms Matilda Baffour-Awuah, who received her, expressed her appreciation for the historic visit. She made a presentation on the Service�s core functions of safe custody and welfare of prison inmates, as well as reformation and rehabilitation. She also spoke on the current challenges the Service was facing, which included lack of staff motivation to let them remain in the Service, poor conditions of service, and inadequate logistics. On overcrowding in prisons, Ms Baffour-Awuah said, �This is the area we needed your help the most; a lot of remand prisoners have overstayed their periods or have their remand warrants expired.� She noted that lack of non-custodial sentencing has to a large extent contributed to a surge in prisoner population, and therefore called on the Minister to use her office to assist the Service in that direction. She hinted that officers needed to be trained and be better equipped to handle modern tasks, and that �the welfare of the prisons officer must be paramount for any reform to progress.� In her response, the Minister expressed her gratitude for the warm reception, and intimated that her department sees the Prisons Service as a critical partner, as it is practically involved in the reformation of inmates to make them better persons. She also mentioned that the Prisons Service as a partner would make invaluable contribution to the designing of the programme document for the reforms. The Legal Services Reform Programme is a move by the A-G�s Department to co-ordinate the efforts of all of its stakeholders into a compact whole to enhance or make better the Ghanaian Criminal Justice System for efficient criminal case management.