GIMPA law lecturer calls for non-custodial sentences for petty crimes

A criminal law lecturer at the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), Dr. Isidore Tufuor has supported calls for a revision in the justice system in the Ghana that will see to the award of non-custodial sentences for petty crimes such as hawking.

According to him, it is important that the reason for decriminalizing these crimes move from concerns that the perpetrators are economically disadvantaged to a more general viewing of these crimes as not meritorious of custodial sentences.

He however noted that the absence of a proper legal system in the country is a major contributory factor to the difficulty with which the poor can access justice in the country.

Dr. Tufuor spoke to Dennislaw News on the sidelines of a panel discussion chaired by the former commissioner of CHRAJ, Justice Emile Francis Short. The panel discussion was on the theme “Decriminalizing petty offences: Is Ghana’s justice system failing the poor and marginalized?”

“To some extent, yes [on whether the justice system is failing some poor Ghanaians]. Because, accessing justice is expensive and because we do not have a legal aid system that is strong, those who are poor will always have financial and other difficulties accessing justice in the system”

“When we are talking about decriminalization and we relate it to poverty that is a little bit problematic because the concept will mean that we will have to legalize some otherwise unacceptable conducts for some group of people simply because they are poor which will not be the way forward,” he noted.

Dr. Tufuor observed that the practice where petty crime offenders who have been fined but are unable to pay those fines are thrown into jail is worrying. He indicated that a more practical punishment will be to require such persons to perform community service or some other non-custodial punishment.

“Rather, instead of getting the poor people into a criminal justice system that does not favor them because they do not have the means, we can look, for example, at other alternatives. Let’s say for example, in terms of imprisonment. If you sentence a poor person to a fine and the person is unable to pay, that poor person ends up in jail. But, if let’s say, instead of taking the person to jail for not being able to pay the fine, can we have a community service, for example, imposed as punishment so that the person can spend some time doing it, or doing some other civic work”

Defining Petty Offences

According to the GIMPA law lecturer, there is no definition in Ghana’s statutes for what constitutes a petty offence.

However, he mentioned that the understandings of what constitutes petty offences can be gleaned from general discussions on the severity of various crimes committed.

“The concept has been used to refer to some types of offences that are so minimal and trivial that we should no longer consider as crimes. An example is hawking. If somebody is poor and that person is selling, we should not criminalize that conduct.”

A New System

Instead, Dr. Tufuor has indicated that the country will benefit most if a different system is put in place to ensure that petty crime offenders are awarded non-custodial sentences in a fast-track manner.

Under this system, although these offenders will go through the ordinary process of being arrested, it will not be necessary to hold them within forty-eight hours.

On the contrary, persons who plead guilty will simply be arraigned before a Judge shortly after being apprehended and be assigned the community service that is commiserate with the offence.

“Anytime we are talking about the community service, it does not mean that the person will not be convicted. Criminal justice system will still stand but in this case, we have to look at the approach. Definitely, they will have to arrest you because you are selling where you are not supposed to sell. Even though the person will be taken through some form of criminal process, the first thing is we should think about that process also. It cannot be the ordinary one.”

“There should be some very simple procedure that the person will be taken through. We should have another system for that. They pick you up, maybe send you to some office, get a police officer there, go through some procedure and within thirty minutes, this should be completed. Later when this is done, the matter should be reported to a district court magistrate who will give you the number of hours you are supposed to do and where you are going,” he explained.

He however noted that chronic offenders may have to be put through the full process of criminal prosecution and be punished according to existing laws.