Human Rights advocate urges government to appoint Chief Inspector of prisons

The Executive Director of Crime Check Foundation, Ibrahim Oppong Kwarteng, has urged the government to appoint a Chief Inspector of Prisons to exercise additional oversight of the prisons.

He opined that there is the need to strengthen prison oversight by following the UK model where prison oversight functions are performed by statutory institutions that have the exclusive legal authority to report on conditions in public and private prisons and other detention facilities.

According to him, the Chief Inspector of Prisons will be an independent office with a head who will report on conditions and treatment of prisoners to promote positive outcomes for those detained.

“To ensure an improvement in prison conditions, I would urge Government to appoint a Chief Inspector of Prisons as we have in other advanced jurisdictions to report on conditions and treatment of prisoners to promote positive outcomes for those detained” he said

Oppong Kwarteng said the appointment of Chief Inspector of Prison will help reduce the abuse of the fundamental human rights of prisoners.

“In the UK for instance, you usually see the Justice Minister in some discomfort when the Chief Inspector of Prisons is about to present his quarterly report on the prisons” he suggested.

He was optimistic that the appointment will bring a lot of change in the life of prison inmates.

Oppong Kwarteng made these recommendations during his speech as a Guest Speaker at the 2019 Amnesty International Annual General Assembly Meeting in Keta