Reformation programs and recidivism: An assessment at Kumasi central prisons.

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Date
2021-06-18
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Abstract
Rehabilitation programs are meant to reform prisoners to become well-behaved human being acceptable into the society after their release. The Prison Service is mandated by law to carry out this reformation agenda in the criminal justice system of Ghana. The primary motivation behind imprisonment in the contemporary society is reformation of the criminals. Put differently, the reason for reformation, as an objective of punishment is to change the present criminal stance of convicts into better and satisfactory people in the social orders through imprisonment. These pluralistic goals could be accomplished through different recovery projects, for example, clinical psychiatric, workmanship, industry, education and numerous others dependent on individual needs. The question that begs for answer is why these criminals do not change, given the available rehabilitation programs in the Prison service? The principle objective of the study is to explore the key factors that contribute to recidivism in Kumasi Central Prison. In order achieve this objective, the entire rehabilitation program at Kumasi Central Prison was evaluated. The officers who are mandated to carry out these rehabilitation programs were interviewed alongside with the counsellors and the administrators of the facilities. Some selected recidivist were always interviewed. In any case, the issue is whether these rehabilitative projects are accessible by the inmates at Prisons Service, and if they are, whether they are vocationally profitable to enable the ex-convict to become economically viable in the society after their released. It was discovered that the inmates at the Central Prison have exceeded its capacity. The congested nature of the prison has made it impossible to maintain any profitable rehabilitation programs in the prison. Again, the study revealed that there are some compelling factors such as, societal rejection, negative perception and stigmatization of ex-offenders and the position of our laws that contributes to recidivism
Description
A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Law, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Laws (LLM).
Keywords
Reformation programs, Recidivism, Kumasi Central Prisons
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