Ghanaians asked to support ex-convicts to feel at home

The Reverend Francis Selwyns A. Okain, a Chaplain at Ghana Prison Service, has expressed the need for society not to see ex-convicts as deviant characters.

He said prison is a place where people go for reform and not for punishment, hence the need to give them the needed support when they are released in order to feel at home.

Rev. Okain said this at a thanksgiving church service the Winneba District Directorate of the Service held for the officers and the inmates to honour the Lord 2013.

He said calling ex-convicts names and pin-pointing at them, among other practices, is not the best.

He urged the inmates not to see their various sentences as a means to disrupt their future, but rather a platform for society to accept them back into its fold.

Chief Superintendent of Prisons, Nana Amoakwa, officer-In-Charge of the facility, told Ghana News Agency in an interview that the Service has numerous challenges which includes operational logistics especially vehicles, staff accommodation and lack of motivation.

He said the society should give prison wardens their due recognition.