The Chief Justice her Ladyship Georgina Theodora Woode has instituted a practice to get judges to visit the prisons every month.<\/p>\n
[contextly_sidebar id=”Cxko8KdvJgmCp6rEnqFLX52q6YtZ5JU8″]Per this practice the judges will visit a prison facility\u00a0to acquaint themselves with the conditions in the prison so they can be better informed when carrying out their duties.<\/p>\n
This is part of the measures the Prison Service Council and the Chief Justice are taking to make conditions at the prisons better.<\/p>\n
This came to light when the Council paid a courtesy call on the Chief Justice.<\/p>\n
Chairman of the Prison Service Council\u00a0Rev Stephen Wingam told Citi News<\/strong> the Chief Justice has already started this by leading some judges to visit the prisons.<\/p>\n \u201cShe has proven her commitment to it by getting some of the judges to visit the Akuse prisons over the weekend,\u201d he revealed.<\/p>\n The focus of the Council is to improve the conditions at the prison which has been describe by a 2012 Amnesty international report on Ghana\u2019s prisons as cruel, inhumane and degrading.<\/p>\n To overcome the issue of over-crowding the Chief Justice also indicated her commitment to ensure that the discharge warrant issued by the court for a prisoner\u2019s release will be given directly to the Prison Service instead of the Police.<\/p>\n Gov\u2019t targets end of 2015 for implementation of non-custodial sentencing<\/strong><\/p>\n This comes on the back of the\u00a0presentation of a report on non-custodial sentencing policy to the Chief Justice by the Interior Minister Mark Woyongo.<\/p>\n Non-custodial sentencing is a sentence given by a court of law which does not involve serving time in prison but it may include a fine, a restriction order, probation order or community service order.<\/p>\n In 2014, stakeholders in the criminal justice system collaborated with the Judicial Service, the Ministry of Justice and Attorney-General and the Ghana Prisons Service to find the possible ways to implement the non-custodial penal code.<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n By Betty Kankam-Boadu\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Chief Justice her Ladyship Georgina Theodora Woode has instituted a practice to get judges to visit the prisons every month. [contextly_sidebar id=”Cxko8KdvJgmCp6rEnqFLX52q6YtZ5JU8″]Per this practice the judges will visit a prison facility\u00a0to acquaint themselves with the conditions in the prison so they can be better informed when carrying out their duties. This is part of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":3963,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[43,38],"yoast_head":"\n