Correctional centres needs attention - Sabaa

Mrs Susan Sabaa, Executive Director of Child Research and Resource Centre (CRRECENT), has said there is the need to pay attention to correctional centres and ensure that initiatives to reform juveniles are robust.

She said such initiatives are important else the juveniles could return to the society in a much worse state.

Mrs Sabaa said the society would suffer dire consequences if the correctional centres failed to effectively discharge their mandate due to lack of funding.

She was speaking in an interview with the press at the sidelines of an ‘Access to Justice Programme’ training workshop organised by the Youth Bridge Foundation (YBF), a youth focused Civil Society Organisation, on Tuesday in Cape Coast.

Mrs Sabaa said there are three correctional centres in the country namely the Senior Centre, under the Ministry of Interior in Accra in the Greater Accra Region with the two junior ones, under the Social Welfare Department in Tamale in the Northern Region and Agona Swedru in the Central Region.

She expressed concern that the three centres were not adequate coupled with the fact that they were cash strapped and in dire need of facilities and experts to help the reform process.

Mrs Sabaa said the centres apart from equipping the juveniles with vocational skills, needed to address the ‘Criminogenic needs’ of the juveniles- being their likelihood to reoffend or commit another crime.

She said they also needed a clinical psychologist, therapeutic interventions, juvenile offender management and adequate time to effectively reform before they are reintegrated into society

Parenting, she said, must be strengthened in the country since the upbringing of children has been more challenging with the upsurge of the internet, she said.

The workshop, forms part of a project titled: “Securing the future of young people in Ghana through improved Juvenile Justice Administration” is being implemented by YBF with funding from the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA).

The aim of the project was to organise refresher legal training on child- related policies and jurisprudence as well as offer platforms for key actors to share lessons and the best practices to enhance their understanding of children’s right and increase their application in their daily work.

The workshop brought together personnel from the Department of Social Welfare, Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit, National Commission on Civic Education, Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice and Ghana Education Service among others.

Mrs Frederica Owuani, Assistant Director in charge of Justice Administration of the Department of Social Welfare, said a “Child and Family Policy” had been formulated to ensure the welfare of children

The policy, launched in November last year by the Ministry of the Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, among others had created room for community structures, such as schools, to contribute to the welfare of children with respect to prevention of crime.

Mr Fredrick Jojo Kwofie, Programmes Assistant of YBF, said the organisation was concerned with child development issues and recognizes the need for people working on such issues to regularly upgrade their knowledge and skills and given the needed support to execute their mandate effectively.