Constructing new prison facilities is not the solution to the congestion problem at the various prisons in the country, Public Relations Officer for the Sunyani Central Prison ASP Vincent Ziniel has said.
ASP Ziniel, speaking to Class News, said the solution to congestion would be to prevent crime.
The Sunyani Central Prison, originally built to contain a maximum of 400 inmates, currently houses over 800 prisoners. The prison currently relies on other small prisons in the region to ease the pressure on the facility.
“We have Yeji, Duayaw Nkwanta, and Kenyase, all under Sunyani Central, so we do transfer prisoners from the Central Prison to Yeji, Duayaw Nkwanta and Kenyase if they have vacancies over there,” he stated.
“The other way of decongesting this prison is transferring some outside Brong Ahafo. At times, we verify from other prisons if they have spaces over there like Ankaful, Kumasi, Ho, and Akuse. We do transfer some there and thirdly, Ghana Prisons, in collaboration with the government, is trying to introduce something called non-custodial sentences so that prisoners with minor crime may be asked to perform certain duties outside the prison while they still serve their sentences …” ASP Ziniel noted.
According to him, “We are trying all our best to educate people on certain things that they shouldn’t get into. Constructing a prison is not a small issue; if we want to base all our efforts on building a prison in order to decongest the people, then we can’t solve the problem. The [solution] is to just see how we can prevent crime.”
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