Kobedi, (B/R), July 8, GNA – The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), a non-governmental organisation, has sensitized residents of Kobedi, a farming community in the Sunyani West Municipality on the Community Service Bill.
The Bill, which is an alternative to a custodial sentence for convicted offenders in respect of certain types of offences, would see offenders rendering unpaid public work within a community for its benefit for a period not exceeding the term of imprisonment for which the court would have given them.
According to Mr Thomas Benneh, the Monitoring and Evaluation Officer of MIHOSO International Foundation, and local partners of CHRI, the passage of the Bill was long overdue considering the overcrowding in the country’s prisons and called on the government to expedite action on the Bill.
Speaking at a sensitization forum held at Kobedi, Mr Benneh said convicts of minor offences, including indecent exposure, petty theft and assaults, among others should not be incarcerated in prisons but rather render community service.
The forum was in line with the implementation of the Ghana Case Tracking System and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Justice Sector Activity (JSA).
The CTS is integrated software that tracks criminal cases in the justice delivery system from inception until their disposition.
Supported by the USAID, the implementation of the pilot project, among other objectives, seeks to provide a common platform for easy tracking of cases and communication between the justice delivery institutions.
Research, Mr Benneh added showed that many convicts of minor offences return from prison hardened, saying because their reintegration into society was sometimes difficult, they committed major offences and returned to jail.
Mr Benneh said the interest of local communities in the Bill was very high and expressed the hope the Bill would be passed into law in the supreme interest of the nation.
Chief Inspector Edward Tawiah, the Officer in charge of investigations at the Chiraa Police Station, advised the people to be law-abiding and report crime suspects to the Police for their arrest and prosecution.
He also advised the people to open up and support Police investigations on crime suspects, and also inform the Police about people with questionable characters and strange movements to help fight crime in the area.
GNA