Thefts at Nsawam - Residents suspect ex-convicts
Some residents of Nsawam in the Eastern Region have expressed concern over what they describe as an increase in theft in the area.
They told The Mirror in an interview that they lived in fear and believed that the act was being done by some ex-convicts from the Nsawam prisons.
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They explained that when some ex-convicts were released, they refused to travel back to their homes and rather hang around the Nsawam station, market or in between kiosks in the neighbourhoods.
Again, some said the ex-convicts often formed an alliance with some bad inhabitants to commit more crime.
Residents who were mostly affected were farmers, bread bakers, okada riders, poultry farmers and some people living at the quarters of the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL).
They are, therefore, calling on the Ghana Prisons Service and other stakeholders to find a better way of reintegrating ex-convicts into their original homes.
Residents
A resident, an okada rider, Blackie, told The Mirror that the issue of theft was too much in the area and he equally suspected ex-convicts.
He noted that motorcycles were a target because it afforded the ex-convicts a means of transport.
Blackie ,who had had his own share of it said “they stole my motorcycle so I am very particular about this new one. Stealing is very common here. So all the okada riders our eyes make red, if we catch them, we will not spare them”.
For a poultry farmer, Agya Asamoah, he had monitored them at dawn stealing from his facility and was convinced that they were ex-convicts and lamented about how his farms were almost collapsing because of their thievery.
For some bread bakers, storage of flour had to be done using a different strategy, otherwise they would wake up to an empty flour store.
A Mechanical Engineer at the quarters of the GWCL, Mr Henry Baafi Ackon said “it is so easy for them to remove the net on your trap door and open the lock.
So I have told my family not to leave the house empty”.
Nsawam Police
However, a source at the Nsawam Police Station who spoke on anonymity said it was probably the inhabitants stealing from among themselves and not the ex-convicts.
“Per our records stealing is not on the increase here. We have intensified our patrols. Three different patrol teams at night and three working during the day.
We cannot say all the crimes committed are being done by ex-convicts, maybe once in awhile. I think the prison service has its own way of discharging the convicts. I don’t want to believe that they just leave them to hang around ”, the source explained.
While at the station, a suspected thief whose fingers had been chopped off by some residents was brought in. The officer urged The Mirror to find out from
him where he was from.
Responding in pain, he said “I live in Accra, I came here to steal rubber”. When asked whether he was an ex-convict, he said “no”.
Ghana Prison Service
Reacting to this, the Head of Media Relations of the Ghana Prisons Service (GPS), DSP Irene Pokuah Wiredu, said it was not their mandate to reintegrate ex-convicts into the society.
She said the core mandate of the GPS was to take custody of the convicted person’s welfare as well as reformation and rehabilitation programmes to facilitate a successful resettlement into the society.
“When they finish serving their sentence, what we do is to leave them at the gate of the prisons and part ways. That is where it ends. You have to go to the lorry station for transport yourself. We give them lorry fare per Ghana Private Road Transport Union charges . So we have a list of lorry fares to all locations”, she explained.
“For instance, if a person was arrested in Kumasi and brought to Nsawam prisons, at the end of their jail term we provide the individual with lorry fare to Kumasi, she added.
The DSP said it was the mandate of the Social Welfare Division to take charge of their reintegration, “maybe they may also have a challenge in executing that”.
“It is only in rare cases in the event of those who have been adopted. Such people go through some form of education or training. We follow up on such ex-convicts. Some have successfully reintegrated and are doing amazing,” she said.
Challenges
DSP Wiredu said training some of the prisoners through rehabilitation to make them responsible, productive and lawabiding citizens was a way of ensuring
public safety and difficult to achieve especially when dealing with people with bad behaviour.
“A convict comes in with a sentence of stealing, we do our best to reform them. Take them through reformation to take their minds off the sentence. And then there are those who have a bad character and will not give themselves up for training. Looking at the congestion we face, it becomes difficult breaking even with every single prisoner”, she explained.
She said it was difficult to force some of them to attend training programmes, “some may have completed junior high school and will take advantage to go through our senior high school but for some too, they won’t and you cannot force them”.
She noted that there were some prisoners who formed alliance in prisons and, “end up learning all sort of tricks and leave to “upgrade” themselves in the society but most of them too leave here reformed, become ambassadors projecting prisons welfare. We are doing our best here”.
DSP Wiredu encouraged the Nsawam community and its environs to take care of themselves,” it could be ex-convicts doing that or not. It could also be people coming in from other regions”, she said.
Thefts at Nsawam
•Residents suspect ex-convicts