Over-populated Prisons, re-cycling of crime and the resolve to protect the youth in Ghana

Dear Mr. Wolff we are grateful to you for you thought concerning the title of this project. Apart from the many health advantages accruing from sports activities, our target is use this platform to improve standards and quality of living. As I stated in my earlier submissions, ACRO Ghana finds it not too convincing for governments which depend on foreign aid to supplement annual budgets to cater for young, energic minor offenders in the prisons.
Ghana is finding it very difficult to manage her prisons. Overpopulated penal establishments can often only provide inadequate conditions for inmates, both physically and psychologically. Prisoners have to be detained for long periods on remand and prisons are frequently unable to carry out the tasks of training and rehabilitation, despite there being stated aims in the national statutory texts which govern them. At the same time, rising crime rates, especially in large conurbation’s, make these inadequacies all the more worrying, Minor offenders are brought into close proximity with more hardened criminals without their being any real possibility for their rehabilitation into society and employment. The suspended sentence whereby court convicts an offender while adjourning the sentencing process for a period during which he is placed under supervision in its form is therefore the basic alternative to custody.
In Ghana it would be possible with time for a supervising court to delegate the probation officer’s function to a social worker, a relative of the offender or ACRO Ghana’s sporting clubs which help them to reintegrate into society. In Zimbabwe and Namibia, one of the conditions of probation can be to carry out a service to the victim of the offence. ACRO Ghana with the support of the Authorities could adopt this to compensate the victim to bring harmony. ACRO Ghana and the government departments responsible of promoting penal reform would run a campaign to inform the public about the problems surrounding the prison system and the advantages to be expected from the new policy, which aims to protect the interests of the society in which the offender has grown up and to which he must continue to belong.
The AgriCare programme of ACRO Ghana is to move from subsistence to commercial to provide employment for the youth and ex-offenders. The effect is poverty reduction, increased quality of standard of living and harmonization of Society.

Thank you Usha! For the first concern I have tried to explain in Eli's reply and hope you will bear with me to have a look, thank you!
The second issue is the way we involve ACRO Ghana in the communities we operate. The emphasis of ACRO Ghana’s football projects is on participation, personal and social development and fun. Although football is a competitive sport, our projects work to engage young as well as the aged people regardless of individual skill, ability and sex. Through outreach work in the local community, projects target hard-to-reach young people from school who are not in any form of education, training or employment or not involved in any kind of youth provision. Once young people are taking part in activities, project staff and volunteers support them in identifying and addressing any other issues they may be facing, such as problems with drugs, alcohol and general health and fitness.
ACRO Ghana establishes an effective model of working, on which all our football projects are based:
1. Meetings held with local residents’ associations and community groups in order to identify local needs
2. and to recruit adult volunteers to set up and run the clubs. Volunteers are given training and support,
3. including help with establishing a club structure, the provision of equipment and accessing training
4. venues, and the opportunity to participate in an accredited training programme.
With the problems of a particular community established, the root causes are also identified, ie approaching the issue wholistically. In most communities, the problems of poverty, umemployment, lack of entertainment and recreation, health related issues such as HIV/Aids, Malaria, other communicable diseases cut accross the board.
Therefore, we work with the District Health Care Unit to support participants with Health education, including Enviromental Hygiene and Sanitation.
The AgriCare programme help solve to some extent, the problem of unemployment.
The toddlers and the kids are not left out in our wholistic approach. They have the playgrounds which are led by ACRO Ghana and are community owned.
Entertainment for the youth is very important and in this regard we have the Cultural Music and Dance which does very well even without electricity.

The problem of the huge remand population in Ghanaian prisons has been an area of concern. The problem of HIV/AIDS in prisons is another area of intervention. Advocacy, therefore, involves first gathering and presenting enough evidence in a world in which multiple crises and innumerable just causes are fiercely competing for attention, legitimacy and urgency. If and when ACRO Ghana succeeds in its pleading, when the issue gains enough political salience to become “an issue”, then the task becomes one of sustaining concern; i.e., keeping it on the political agenda.

To find out whether reforms are feasible (alternative penalties, the appointment of judges to execute and review sentences) it is essential to gain more comparative knowledge of existing statutes and practices in Ghana. All too often, the argument that there are “insufficient resources” is put forward by those who prefer the status quo and who avoid thoughts and actions which require commitment, conviction and energy. It is our humble desire to work with Judges, prison staff members and voluntary workers to look out the way forward despite the harsh socio-economic conditions with which we may have to cope.

Thank you Charles for your interest and comment. Ghana`s economy basically revolves around Agriculture, contributing at least 36% of GDP and employing about 60% of the total population. Literacy is low with unemployment high amongst the youth.
Consequently, what ACRO Ghana does is to use sports as platform to attact the unemployed youth in the communities, encourages and supports them to go into farming which requires less start up capital. Arable lands abound every where in the country with farm produce also having huge market potential in and outside the country. The only risk here is to prevent post harvest loses and low pricing during bumper harvest. There are also poverty related offences everywhere and we believe once we make use of available productive resources to improve living, poverty related crimes amongst the youth is catered for.

Secondly, Our main target is to teach to create awareness of peoples civic responsibilities which in many cases is lacking, to prevent crime and other social vices which turn to increase the prison numbers. The withdrawal and absence of family support, along with guilt imposed by society and neighbours sometimes entangles ex-convicts in cycles of crime and prison life. Convicts learn to feel permanently guilty and unworthy to live in a free society. Past loyalty to crime gangs and unfavourable economic conditions increase pressures and hardships which lead to re-offences. We counsel the would be free Prisoner, depending on interest, understanding and committment to integrate him/her in our sports clubs as a first step to find new friends and supports them into the AgriCare programme.