IN THE PURSUIT OF REASONABLE JUSTICE: The need for an alternative sentencing policy.

Over the past two years i have become so engaged with judicial matters especially in the area of 'Access to Justice', so much that my friends doubt if I really studied Business Administration. They will always go like "how come you are a paralegal when we all studied Business together?".

Well, the answer is not far fetched. In my third year i decided to intern with a Non Governmental Organization (POS Foundation) which is also a Civil society organization and currently serves as the secretariat for the Ghana Human Rights NGOs Forum. POS Foundation is also currently the facilitating organization of the JUSTICE FOR ALL PROGRAMME FOR REMAND PRISONERS; A State driven intervention programme organized by the Judicial Service, in collaboration with the Attorney General's Department, the Prison Service and Police Service which makes justice accessible to remand prisoners by organizing In-Prison Court sittings to adjudicate remand cases that may have been long over due. I have remained with them ever since and this is borne out of my desire to be a channel through which a less privileged soul regains his or her freedom.

Having been to almost every prison in Ghana (Nsawam Medium Security Prisons in the Eastern Region, Winneba Local Prisons and Ankaful Prisons in the Central Region, Takoradi and Tarkwa Prisons in the Western Region, Sunyani Prisons in the Brong Ahafo Region, Kpando and Ho Prisons in the Volta Region, Kumasi Central Prisons in the Ashanti Region and the Tamale Central Prisons in the Northern Region) i can say that i have seen enough congestion of Human beings to last me a lifetime. In fact almost every prison in Ghana currently holds more than three times its design capacity.

One would ask, what the cause of this over congestion could be. Simple, a lack of an alternative sentencing policy. Let me give you an example.

Recently at one the interviews which usually precede the court sittings I interviewed a 23 year 'young' man who had spent about 2 years already in prison 'on remand' and here is his story.

He had cooked some rice and was about to eat but went inside the room to take some water only to come out and find a chicken eating his food, in a bid to ward it off the object he threw hit the animal too hard it died. The owner after mobbing the young man together with some of his friends handed him over to the police. For the life of a chicken this young man

I don't want to step on anybody's toes here, but the amount of non-dad jokes here in this subreddit really annoys me. First of all, dad jokes CAN be NSFW, it clearly says so in the sub rules. Secondly, it doesn't automatically make it a dad joke if it's from a conversation between you and your child. Most importantly, the jokes that your CHILDREN tell YOU are not dad jokes. The point of a dad joke is that it's so cheesy only a dad who's trying to be funny would make such a joke. That's it. They are stupid plays on words, lame puns and so on. There has to be a clever pun or wordplay for it to be considered a dad joke.

Again, to all the fellow dads, I apologise if I'm sounding too harsh. But I just needed to get it off my chest.

Do your worst!

I'm surprised it hasn't decade.

For context I'm a Refuse Driver (Garbage man) & today I was on food waste. After I'd tipped I was checking the wagon for any defects when I spotted a lone pea balanced on the lifts.

I said "hey look, an escaPEA"

No one near me but it didn't half make me laugh for a good hour or so!

Edit: I can't believe how much this has blown up. Thank you everyone I've had a blast reading through the replies 😂

It really does, I swear!

They’re on standbi

Pilot on me!!

Nothing, he was gladiator.

Dad jokes are supposed to be jokes you can tell a kid and they will understand it and find it funny.

This sub is mostly just NSFW puns now.

If it needs a NSFW tag it's not a dad joke. There should just be a NSFW puns subreddit for that.

Edit* I'm not replying any longer and turning off notifications but to all those that say "no one cares", there sure are a lot of you arguing about it. Maybe I'm wrong but you people don't need to be rude about it. If you really don't care, don't comment.

When I got home, they were still there.

What did 0 say to 8 ?

" Nice Belt "

So What did 3 say to 8 ?

" Hey, you two stop making out "

June 2nd, 2023

Accra, Ghana

While Ghana has made considerable strides toward improving the rights of its citizens in recent decades, nothing changes the fact that there is still a long, long way to go until the nation is considered a properly liberal democracy, including necessary advances in LGBT rights, women's rights, children's rights, prisoners' rights, religious rights, and more. One of the most well-document human rights crises in Ghana is the Ghanaian prison system, which has been described by the United Nations as "squalid and overcrowded... prone to cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment." As part of a national effort to mobilize Ghana's economy toward the modernization of the state, President Akufo-Addo and the New Patriotic Party have announced a series of reforms to the Ghana Prisons Service, which will be known as the Prison Repair and Enhancement Plan, or PREP. These changes are aimed at improving the lives of prisoners while maintaining the necessary structure that has kept Ghana's crime rate fairly low compared to its neighbors despite the fact that Ghanaian crime is generally much more organized and advanced than that which occurs in the rest of West Africa.

Funding the GPS

The most immediate and obvious solution to fixing Ghana's prison woes is increasing funding to the Prisons Service. Nearly every one of the country's forty-seven prisons are overcrowded and decrepit, staffed by underpaid guards and unmotivated administrators. A prime example of this issue is the James Fort Prison, which was constructed in 1673 and remained in service until 2008. While the James Fort Prison is obviously an outlier, these kinds of stories are not uncommon in the country. Most prisons house at least more than twice their stated occupancy; not even considering this, most of the prisons are not sufficiently equipped to manage their stated occupancy. Just a decade ago, the average feeding rate per prisoner was about 10 US cents. While by 2020 this had increased to 30 US cents, this is still absolutely abysmal and unable to deliver real change to the system. The Prison Repair and Enhancement Plan seeks to increase this funding to 60 US cents per prisoner, doubling the nutritional budget of Ghanaian prisoners.

However, the real issue

I won't be doing that today!

[Removed]

This morning, my 4 year old daughter.

Daughter: I'm hungry

Me: nerves building, smile widening

Me: Hi hungry, I'm dad.

She had no idea what was going on but I finally did it.

Thank you all for listening.

You take away their little brooms

There hasn't been a post all year!

Why

It’s pronounced “Noel.”

After all his first name is No-vac

What, then, is Chinese rap?

Edit:

Notable mentions from the comments:

• Spanish/Swedish/Swiss/Serbian hits

• French/Finnish art

• Country/Canadian rap

• Chinese/Country/Canadian rock

• Turkish/Tunisian/Taiwanese rap

There hasn't been a single post this year!

(Happy 2022 from New Zealand)

Nothing, it just waved

Him: I can explain everything!

(It's his best joke yet I think)

Bob

So that I could frequently say, "I am going to walk 5 miles now."

Edit: My most popular post on Reddit! 😀 Thank you for the awards.

Just to clarify, 12345678

Me grabbing a soda from my (what I thought was) half full 12pk...

Notices there's only 2;

Me: "Awe man... This is a damn bird box!" Her: "What the hell does that mean?!" Me: (Pulls both cans out & shows them to her) "It's only got Toucans."

I'm not ashamed to admit the look on her face was glorious.

I was just sitting there doing nothing.

It was about a weak back.