Is our penal system reforming deviants?

By Kofi Akordor
LAWS are made to regulate human behaviour. Where it becomes necessary, sanctions are applied as a form of punishment to serve as a deterrent to others who may be tempted to breach the law. Above all we have been told countless times that the penal system is geared more towards reformation and not to destroy or dehumanise.
Of course criminals such as murderers and armed robbers who suffer capital punishment may not have any opportunity of reforms since they are likely to spend the rest of their lives in jail in the absence of death penalty, which though in the statute books had not been applied for a very long time now.
Granted that our penal system is driven by the philosophy of reformation, we need to take a hard look at our court system and determine whether it meets this broad objective of reforming persons who have breached the law and offer them the opportunity to reintegrate into society as better and useful citizens.
Even though the argument could be made that the courts are exercising their judicial authority as prescribed by law, we are still of the belief that the courts or judges still have some discretionary powers which they exercise in certain critical situations.
Without trying to impute wrong-doing on the part of our judges, it is a general concern that some of the sentences imposed on teenagers and young adults are so outrageous that they could only serve as deterrents but not to reform by any stretch of imagination.
An 18-year-old who is jailed for 50 years for serious crime cannot be said to be on the path of reform, since a life that had barely began would have come to its end should he survive and serve the full sentence.
The police would argue that their job is to arrest and prosecute those who violate the law. The courts will also justify their decisions by saying they are only exacting penalties as prescribed by law. It is important that all stakeholders including the lawmakers, the law enforcements and the administrators of justice put their heads together to address some of the issues so that they do not remain a burden of one party alone.
A few cases may illustrate the point. In the first case, a 20-year-old young man was jailed 20 years in December last year for robbing a junior high school student of two mobile phones at knife point.
In a second case which is still in court, two students of Accra Academy were arrested for robbing a boutique in Dzorwulu, an Accra suburb. A third student was handed over to the police by his own father. The three students were aged 17, 18 and 19. We are yet to know the outcome of this case so we shall rest it for now.
The third case which attracted banner headlines, two students of the Keta Business High School aged 19 and 20 years were jailed 30 years each for robbery and five years each for conspiracy by an Aflao Circuit Court.
Emmanuel Nartey, 19, and Hope Dotse, 20, were said to have robbed a young woman of her mobile phone after one of them put his hand in his pocket pretending to be pulling out a gun.
The two boys were lucky because the harsh sentence attracted the sympathetic intervention of two members of parliament – Mr Richard
Lassey Agbenyefia (Keta) and Mr Clement Kofi Humado (Anlo) and a lawyer, Mr Chris Ackumey, who took the case up on an appeal.
The boys were freed by a Ho High Court. There are fundamental issues that need to be addressed. There was no evidence that any of the two students actually pulled out a gun so the charge of robbery becomes weak and a charge of stealing could have been better.
Also both the accused and the victim live in the same community and know themselves very well and for all you know what was being described as robbery could have been some childish pranks usually associated with students.
There is no doubt that the students did not act well but should they suffer the same penalty as those who rob violently? A mild sentence based on a charge of stealing or even a caution and a bond to be of good behaviour could have served the purpose of deterrent and at the same time reform the students for a better life.
We all know that the robbery has become a social menace that should be uprooted by all means. We also know that crime at all levels including juvenile, should be fought with all the means available to the state apparatus but that should not take away our power of discretion.
We know the problems of overcrowding and inadequate facilities confronting our prisons already so the least we could do is to cram these prisons with teenagers and juveniles when there could be an alternative ways of reforming youngsters most of whom have barely started their adult lives.
In the case of the students of Keta Business High School, the question is what would have been their future if the three gentlemen did not appeal their case and win? Would they have served 30 years of their active lives behind bars because of one mobile phone?
It was obvious that the jail sentence was not to reform but to destroy them for life even before they have started their life’s journey.
Very often, young offenders find themselves in prison for long jail terms for possessing marijuana when big time drug barons and their accomplices are walking free on the corridors of authority. The courts will say that is the law at work. Yes, but the law was made for man by man so we can straighten the rough edges if we have come to realise that the law, as it is now, is doing more damage to our national security and development.
The penal system itself needs reform and it is only fair that the institutions sit up to determine how to address deviant behaviour especially among the youth without necessarily cutting short their hopes and aspirations.
A lot of them who waste away in prisons could easily become the professionals that we desperately need for our national development. Sentencing a teenager to a jail term of 10, 15, 20, 30 years and more cannot have anything to do with reformation- at least not in our prisons which lack the facilities to train inmates in various vocations. It is better we make the effort and fail than when we do not make the attempt at all.

fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
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