AND IF NOT, WHY SHOULD TAXPAYERS BE BURDENED WITH THE COST OF CARING FOR AND MAINTAINING “CRIMINALS” FOR LIFE OR FOR LONG PERIODS?

BY: OTCHERE DARKO

INTRODUCTION: I am posing the questions above ahead of the Second Biennial General Conference of African Correctional Services Association (ACSA) being hosted by the Ghana Prisons Service in Accra from Monday September 13 to Friday September 17; my questions having been triggered by this special reported case:-
*“Sunyani (B/A), Aug. 25, GNA - The Sunyani High Court two, presided over by Justice Godwin Gabor, on Tuesday, imposed the death sentence on 10 accused persons standing trial before it for murder.”*

Before moving to discuss the issue of “death sentence” and its alternative, we may below sketch through some of the reasons why convicted offenders are handed the sentences they are handed, whether it is “death” or “prison” or “fine”:
One can identify four main conventional reasons why people are handed the sentences they get after being convicted for the crimes they commit. These are: (1) justice for the victim; (2) protection of the vulnerable; (3) punishment of the culprit; and (4) warning to would-be offenders. With respect to justice, one may say that getting a conviction is, in itself, an important aspect of justice for a victim of crime. The sentence that follows a conviction, though, helps to complement and crown this justice. With respect to protection of the vulnerable, most court sentences offer variable levels of protection to those who could subsequently be subjected to similar crimes by convicted persons. Both “death” and “life” sentences offer maximum “subsequent protection cover” for vulnerable people including the victims of the crimes for which convictions have been made, while shorter prison sentences give arrays of limited “subsequent protection cover” over the duration of the sentences served by prisoners concerned. With respect to “warning to would-be offenders”, one may say that all court sentences including “fines” serve as warning to would-be offenders, even though tougher sentences act, or are theoretically supposed to act, as “tough warning” to would-be offenders. With this rough scrutiny of the reasoning behind sentencing, we may move to the real question that forms the first part of the title of this article which is: “Should death sentence be passed in Ghana?”

If we could be hundred percent sure that people have been convicted correctly for offences that carry the “death sentence”, then why should such people not be sentenced to death and killed accordingly, if religious and compassionate factors are left out of the consideration? I would ask. The main problem with “capital punishment”, though, is that it is impossible to conclude that convictions reached by judges or jurors are hundred percent accurate and indisputable. There are two main reasons why convictions can never be said to be hundred percent accurate and, therefore, indisputable. *The first reason is that the sets of evidence on which convictions are based can be wrong. As fresh evidences become available through the use of modern techniques such as DNA and other forensic materials found at crime scenes, several convictions across the entire length and breadth of the developed world have been reversed in appeals made several years after previous judgments and sentences have been handed down. These reversed judgments have proved that sometimes people can be, and are wrongly convicted as a result of flawed evidence. These conviction-reversal situations have become more frequent in recent years as a result of increasing use of these modern techniques. In Britain, for example, a case that involved the murder of a famous female TV presenter and which led to the conviction and life imprisonment of a known previous stalker of the murdered presenter was found to be unsafe and wrong as a result of new forensic evidence that became available several years after the previous conviction. The wrongly convicted and imprisoned man has since been set free by a Court of Appeal, thanks to the fact that “death sentence” has long been abolished in Britain. If this man had been sentenced to death and killed accordingly, he could not ultimately have received justice. *The second reason why convictions are less than hundred percent accurate and therefore unsafe to be the basis for “death sentence” is the fact that part of decisions of judges and jurors that lead to convictions, like most human decisions, are subjective. No subjective decision can be said to be hundred percent accurate, even if it is a unanimous decision made by several people. If we accept that human judgment plays a major part in the evaluation of evidence to arrive at convictions or otherwise, then it is clear that judgments can be wrong because of this element of subjectivity in the decision making processes that culminate in convictions. For these two reasons, no court decision can be said to be hundred percent “indisputable”. And if no court decision can be said to be hundred percent “indisputable”, then no person deserves to be sentenced to death based on a court decision. If “death sentences” are “unsafe” and accordingly unfair and wrong, then what should replace them? In places where there is no “death sentence”, the alternative sentence handed down is “life imprisonment”.

If we argue that “death sentence” is unfair and wrong from the point of view of the convicted offender, then we may also argue that imprisonment is unfair and wrong from the point of view of the taxpayer who is currently burdened by the cost of “prison sentences”, especially where sentences are “life imprisonment”. It is clear that the longer the “prison sentence”, the bigger the tax burden and, therefore, the more unfair and wrong it is to the taxpayer. It is therefore important that society does not transform the “unfairness” associated with the “death sentence” which works against convicted offenders into another “unfairness” associated with this alternative scenario of “life imprisonment” and which works against innocent taxpayers. *I do emphatically state that time is overdue for the financial cost of imprisonment to be borne by convicted offenders themselves in any ways practicable, so as to relieve taxpayers from this “horrendous” and unfair burden of bearing such “load” on behalf of those who commit crimes and other offences. *Time is also overdue for criminality to be seen as a “personality disorder” that requires professional attention, in the same way that bad physical and mental conditions are seen and are accorded professional attention. All “criminals” and other “wrong-doers”, whether they operate with financial or non-financial motives and whether they are corrupt politicians or drug dealers or “sakawa” and “419” operatives or armed youth gangsters, have “personality disorder” problems that negatively affect their behaviour, just as illnesses negatively affect the physical and mental health conditions of patients. There is need, therefore, for a new way to be found to redefine criminality and other forms of offences against individuals and communities, as well as a new way to deal with both convicted offenders and financing of the cost of “keeping such court convicts in lawful confinement”.

With respect to finding this new way of financing the keeping of convicts in confinement, we could look at the issue from two angles. People who have enough assets to pay for the cost of their confinement must be asked or forced to bear the full cost of the period of their confinement. Those who have not got enough assets to pay for the cost of their confinement should, while in confinement, be made to work to pay for the cost of this confinement. Those who may argue against the idea of convicts paying for the cost of their maintenance in confinement should look at the issue from the alternative side. That is, they should look at the situation where innocent taxpayers are forced to pay tax to keep convicted people in confinement, even though many of such convicts have assets that majority of tax payers may not have. They may also look at the NHIS to discover that even people who fall ill physically and usually through no fault of their own pay for their hospital care. So why should court convicts not pay for their maintenance care while they are in lawful confinement?

In my opinion, the whole concept of “imprisonment” has to change from its current negative connotation into one of a new and positive image. Modern society has a duty to remove this negative connotation associated with “prison sentence” and re-dress the concept in a better and more rewarding way that can impact positively on convicts particularly, and on society generally. Perhaps, the very term of “sentenced to imprisonment” should be substituted with a more positive term such as “sentenced to rehabilitation confinement”. In this way, the punitive element of the purpose underlying the “confinement of convicted offenders” could be transformed into a training and rehabilitation aim. If we begin to see the confinement of convicts as a period for training and rehabilitation, then we would be able to use that period to transform unskilled and non-professional convicts through exposure to occupational activities that aim at giving skill and professional education and training to assist such convicts to acquire skill and professional competence that will help then to adjust their personality profile; and, also, to assist them to use the period of their confinement more positively and productively so as to be able to earn incomes to pay for their maintenance while they remain in lawful confinement; and, also, to equip themselves with employable skills and professions that will assist them to return to, and contribute towards the development of their communities. If we begin to see the confinement of convicts as a period for training and rehabilitation, we would also be able to assist skilled and professional convicts to put their skills and professional knowledge to use, while they remain in lawful confinement, to help them to generate incomes to pay for their maintenance during this period of confinement; and also in order to help them to save towards their return to their communities, after the completion of their periods of confinement. The positive concept would also mean that convicted offenders would be treated as “trainees” or “patients” undergoing “personality transformation” or “personality-disorder treatment”, instead of being treated as “criminals” and having a “negative image” of criminality permanently implanted in their minds. Above all, the positive concept would involve turning the currently so-called “prisons” into new places with new and positive names such as “confined rehabilitation centres” that could be set-aside and secluded as communities designated for the purpose of rehabilitating “people with personality disorders”, which is what convicted offenders need as a matter of fact. These “confined rehabilitation centres” could be provided with full basic facilities to support both the convicts and the officers who deal with them. These basic facilities could include rehabilitation units providing psychological and occupational guidance, education, training and new skills acquisition. They could also include deployment and employment avenues for skilled and professional convicts who already possess skills and professions that could be tapped and utilised while such people remained in lawful confinement. When well organised and positively projected, “confined centres” could give new hope to people with “soiled past” to help them to build new lives in “new communities” that would see them as “reformed citizens” coming back to contribute their quotas to nation building.

CONCLUSION: As “death sentence” continues to become outdated, contentious, anathematic and difficult to be carried out even where it is passed; with “life imprisonment” gradually replacing “death sentence” and creating heavier tax burden for taxpayers, on an African continent where independence has rather come to widen economic and social inequality and helped to increase and accentuate incidences of crime and re-offending, Ghana has to re-examine the “prison concept” with a view to making “prison sentences” more positive in its impact, more beneficial to parties involved, and also with a view to turning convicted offenders into reformed citizens and thereby helping to reduce crime and reoffending rates in the country. IN PRINCIPLE, THE “GENERAL CONFERENCE OF AFRICAN CORRECTIONAL SERVICES ASSOCIATION”, OF WHICH “GHANA PRISONS SERVICE” IS A MEMBER, PRESUPPOSES THROUGH ITS NAME THAT GHANA IS PURSUING PART OF THE IDEAS COVERED BY THIS WRITE-UP. IN PRACTICE, HOWEVER, EVERY GHANAIAN KNOWS THAT GHANA IS NOT PROVIDING “CORRECTIONAL SERVICES” FOR GHANAIANS CONVICTED AND SENTENCED FOR CRIMES AND OTHER OFFENCES.

SOURCE: OTCHERE DARKO. [This writer is a centrist, semi-liberalist, pragmatist, an advocate for “inter-ethnic cooperation and unity” and a community-based development protagonist. He is opposed to NDC and NPP and their negative and corrupt politics. He actively campaigns for the development and strengthening of “Third Parties” in Ghana.]