Accra, April 16, – Thirty
officers of the Senior Correctional Centre are attending a five-day training to
enhance their capacity in the management of juvenile offenders.
The training is also to help the
senior officers on how to reform and rehabilitate young people who break the
laws and re-integrate them into society.
Mrs Susan Sabaa, the Executive
Director of the Child Research and Resource Centre (CRRCENT), a
Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), said the collaboration between the police
and prisons to curb crime had not yielded much result, hence the increase in
the number of persons, especially juveniles, who fall back into crime.
Punishment for crime had not
solved the problem, thus, the basis for CRRCENT to intervene to deal with the
root cause.
Financing apprentices, referral
for counselling, re-bonding parents and families, and providing start-up packs,
among other things, were the intervention measures, she said.
There is also the need to ensure
behavioural change by responding to the children’s development needs when they
were reformed and rehabilitated.
The training would, therefore,
serve as a tool for the correctional workers to boost their child management
skills.
Dr Mavis Asare, a Clinical Health
Psychologist of the Progressive Life Centre, an NGO, said the victims were
young people with potential, intelligence and dreams to achieve higher laurels
but landed in criminal activities because they could not realise their dreams.
“Their behaviours are inherited,
that is personality disorders from family members, observation from others,
depression and anxiety manifesting themselves as delinquency or criminal
behaviour.
“Symptoms of depression make them
aggressive and some cause harm to themselves whilst others direct the harm unto
others.
“It is society that has failed
them and it should re-integrate them because all juveniles are not given equal
opportunities, otherwise they would make it,” Dr Asare said.
She said some had also become
recidivists because they had adapted and did not respond to punishment and
called for alternate measures to control their behaviour.
Dr Asare said weak policies and
non-implementation of others were causing child delinquency.
Mrs Sheila Menka-Premo, the Children
and Women’s Rights Advocate, and Chairperson for the occasion, said most law
breakers were angry with the system for the unfair share of the national cake,
thereby attacking innocent citizens.
Criminogenic behavioural change,
she noted, was essential for the officers to help reform the juveniles before
they complete their term in the Borstal homes.
She appealed to the participants
to take the training seriously so as to positively impact on the inmates to
become better citizens and not go back to the prisons as adult offenders.
In their solidarity messages, Mr
Samuel Amankwa, the Director of the Ministry of the Interior, suggested that
the implementation of the Child Friendly Curriculum, introduced by the Ghana
Police Service to help handle young offenders, if successful, should be
extended to the Prisons Service.
Mr Asum-Kwarteng Ahensah, the
Acting Country Director of Plan-Ghana, said his organisation, as a development
partner, was bent on giving lasting solution to the sector than “scratching the
surface”.
Deputy Director of Prisons, Mr
Alhassan Nahii, thanked Ashmore Foundation, a Charity Organisation, for funding
the programme.
GNA
No comments:
Post a Comment