There’s nothing like reformation in Ghana’s prisons – Ex-convict

An ex-convict, Alexander Wiredu who was given a three-year jail sentence has added his voice to conversations about prison reformation and the current state of Ghana’s correction centres.

According to him, the prisons which are supposed to serve as reformation centres for inmates, rather harden them and make more difficult to control.

He told GhanaWeb’s Laud Harris Adu-Asare on #SayItLoud that, while he served at the Sunyani Central Prison, he realized there was nothing like reformation in the prison because the centre appeared to be a world on its own.

Though he insisted that he has been reformed, he said “it is very difficult to say when you go to prison, you’ll be reformed or the prison has reformed you. When you go inside prison, there is nothing like reformation and coming back to human sense. We can only transform someone but we cannot reform…”

Speaking specifically about his experience at the Sunyani Central Prison, Alexander Wiredu said persons who claim to be fully reformed after their sentence mostly feign it just to be accepted back into society.

While attempting to give cogent reasons for his position on reformation he narrated that he witnessed all forms of illegalities perpetrated to the fullest by both servicemen who were supposed to take guard of them and inmates.

“Prison life is very very rough. I must be honest not like how people will come and tell you they have reformed and a whole lot of nonsense they tell others, no. There’s nothing like reformation there because you will be caught with a split of Indian hemp just one roll. You’ll be jailed for 10 years and when you go inside there, they call it reformation meaning there’s no Indian hemp but even before you enter you smell the aroma (of Indian hemp) at the gate…,” he said.

Wiredu, who was release barely a year ago, was convicted on charges of defrauding by false pretenses without a lawyer.