Kumasi Remand Home in disrepair
The Kumasi Remand Home is in a mess, Mr Jacob Achulo, the Ashanti Regional Director of the Department of Social Welfare, has said.
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“This facility was constructed with the objective that juvenile delinquents on remand would not be put in adult cells where they could be traumatised and even become hardened criminals.
“But look at where we find it today, a complete mess,” he told the Daily Graphic.
He expressed his disappointment at the long years of neglect that had brought the once fine facility to its present state.
According to Mr Achulo, “the home is no longer a safe place to keep juvenile delinquents”.
The ramshackle facilities at the home and poor security arrangements have provided an avenue for children on detention to escape.
Over the last two years, more than 10 children on remand have escaped at the blind side of the security at the home.
On April 12, this year, five children on remand broke free from their cells at the home through the ceiling.
Since that incident, the courts have stopped sending juvenile delinquents to the facility.
The officials told the Daily Graphic that from all indications, the home could be shut down soon if the facilities were not rehabilitated.
A tour of the facility by the Daily Graphic last Friday showed that the home was in a serious state of disrepair and needed immediate rehabilitation.
“The types of juvenile delinquents we have today are sophisticated, and it has become evident that the facilities we have at the Kumasi Remand Home cannot keep them,” Mr Achulo said.
“We have reached a situation where their (children’s) tricks sometimes give us the shock of our lives as typified in the numerous escapes we have been recording,” he said.
Confining a person or a child to a remand home means to give shelter and stabilise the child mentality so that he or she will not commit crime.
Apart from serving the Ashanti Region, the home also takes care of the Brong Ahafo Region because the Sunyani Remand Home has also been closed, while some districts in the Central Region also use the Kumasi Home.
At first sight, one would take the home constructed by the colonial administration in 1946 to be an abandoned poultry farm.
The colonial administration constructed the home and provided all the necessary facilities to enable it keep juvenile offenders committed by the courts for temporary detention without any difficulty or fear.
But today, the dormitories, toilets, bathrooms, offices are in a sad state, and with funding from central government woefully inadequate, the home cannot stand on its feet.
A fence constructed by the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) is too short to prevent possible escapes.
Only one security man provided by the Department of Social Welfare keeps watch at the facility, and hardened inmates could easily have escaped if they wanted to do so.
Insufficient grant from the central government also creates challenges in the running of the home and feeding of inmates.
In 2012, the home was given GH¢500.00 as grant.
The situation has compelled officials to depend on food from the Kumasi Children's Home and also credit food items from private people.
Children sent to the home are tried by juvenile courts under the country’s criminal law.
The commonest case that leads to the detention of children at the facility is stealing.
Mr Achulo partially blamed parents for neglecting their responsibilities towards their children which made them resort to criminal activities.
The practice is that when a child is arrested by the police for an offence which is not serious, he or she would be released to his or her parent who would bring the suspect to court.
But, Mr Achulo said, sometimes it became difficult to trace the parents of the child, a situation which usually compelled the court to detain such a child at a remand home.
Children on remand at the home are by law expected to be treated in a way that would reform them.
The Ashanti Regional Director also admitted that officers of the department also needed re-training on how to handle children sent to the home.
“Yes they need to update their knowledge on service delivery.”
By Kwame Asare Boadu/Daily Graphic/Ghana