There hasn't been enough push for community sentencing – Martin Kpebu

Over the years, stakeholders in the justice delivery system (the likes of CHRAJ and POS Foundation) have called for non-custodial sentencing, especially for offenders of petty crime.

Is allowance instantly strangers applauded

Private legal practitioner, Martin Kpebu says there hasn’t been enough drive towards the actualization of community sentencing as an alternative punishment to custodial sentencing. 

Speaking on The Law Programme by host, Samson Lardy Anyenini, he says discussions on community sentencing began a long time ago, even while he was in his early teens. 

“I remember being a kid and this matter being discussed on TV, I was barely 10 years old, I saw it, they showed other countries where people were made to sweep the streets. And it tells you that, so we’ve had education over all these years and the thing is that we haven’t had enough push,” he said.

He goes back to say funding is usually a major problem in achieving such reforms in the criminal justice system while citing the Justice for All Programme (JFAP) for instance.  

“You see so we push like this programme, two, three days, then we go to sleep, because there’s no funding. Often, I think that’s one of the critical problems. Because you need a sustained education, and of course go and help put together a bill, from the Attorney-General’s chambers, they go to cabinet, and all that, so you need funding. Because this current one, Justice For All Programme (JFAP), POS Foundation, they went around the whole country with the bill, to sensitise people, came back, then it was taken to the AG’s, from AG’s to cabinet, somewhere it got lost, you know, all that,” he added.

Over the years, stakeholders in the justice delivery system (the likes of CHRAJ and POS Foundation) have called for non-custodial sentencing, especially for offenders of petty crime. 

The argument is that not only will non-custodial sentencing such as community sentencing reduce congestion in the prisons, but it would also reduce the backlog of criminal cases in the law courts.

Thus in August 2020, Vice President Dr. Bawumia, at the graduation and commissioning parade for 150 cadet officers of the Ghana Prisons Service in Accra, disclosed that government will soon lay before Parliament, a bill for the promulgation of alternative sentencing that includes probation, parole, and community service.

Subsequent to that, on a working visit to the James Camp Prison and Senior Correctional Centre at Roman Ridge in November 2021, the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Mr. Godfred Dame indicated that his office was preparing to lay before Parliament two bills proposing alternative sentencing other than custodial sentencing for lawbreakers.

Those two bills are the Plea Bargaining Bill and the Alternative Sentencing Bill.

According to Mr. Dame, while the Plea Bargaining Bill had had approval from the Cabinet to be laid before Parliament, the Alternative Sentencing Bill was undergoing stakeholder consultations.