Coyle (2023) explains that a prison is a facility for incarcerated individuals convicted of a crime or deprived of liberty. Until the late 18th century, prisons were primarily used for debtors, accused individuals awaiting trial, and convicts awaiting their sentences, usually death or deportation overseas.
The FindLaw Staff (2021) espoused that judges have discretion in determining sentences and can choose alternatives as part of a plea bargain. They can sentence a guilty defendant to fines or restitution, community service, probation, deferred adjudication or pre-trial diversion, or unconditional discharge. Deferred adjudication involves the defendant participating in a rehabilitation programme, usually anger management or drug treatment, and if successful, the charges are dismissed. Unconditional discharge, on the other hand, does not order jail time or a fine. This is an indication that not all convictions result in time behind bars, but recent developments indicate an increasing trend of incarceration. According to Dahl and Mogstad (2020), since the 1980s, incarceration rates have significantly increased in most countries, with the US experiencing a tripling and many European countries nearly doubling rates, raising questions about prison effectiveness. In 2019, Professor David Harding of the University of California, Berkeley, highlighted that every 90 seconds, one individual in the US receives a sentence to a state or federal prison, which works out to roughly 420,000 sentences annually. In terms of imprisonment, the United States leads the globe. World Prison Brief’s latest global data shows that over 11.5 million people are in prison worldwide on any given day. The US is the largest country with the highest prison population (1.84 million) with a prison population rate of 629 people per 100,000 people, followed by China (1.69 million), Brazil (811,000), India (478,000), and Russia (471,000). The US is an outlier in terms of prison population. The question remains: why are 11.5 million people in prison worldwide on any given day?
The first defense offered by advocates for prison is that it is a powerful deterrent. They contend that prison is a harsh kind of punishment since it wipes away a person’s identity and freedom and cuts them apart from possible support systems. Some people are so terrified of going to jail that they never even consider committing a crime. This argument is flawed because prisons do not work as an effective form of punishment to deter people from indulging in crime. Statistics from the World Prison Brief on Ghana’s prison population indicate a biennial increase in the population of inmates from 2000–2023. For instance, Ghana had a prison population of 13,333 in 2020, which increased to 15,271 as of September 25, 2023. The World Prison Brief estimates that as of January 2023, the United Kingdom had the highest per-capita incarceration rate in Western Europe, with 136 people per 100,000 in England and Wales, 134 in Scotland, and 88 in Northern Ireland, as well as the biggest prison population in the region. The Ministry of Justice and HM Prison and Probation Service also reported that as of the end of 2022, there were 81,806 people incarcerated in the UK (England and Wales), consisting of 78,699 men (96.2%) and 3,107 women (3.8%), up from 79,092 at the end of 2021. These statistics defeat the argument that prison is an effective deterrent, as reports indicate a continuous increase in prison population. If prison were to be an effective form of punishment, as advocated by some, the prison population would have witnessed a decrease and not an increase in population.
The prison system does not reduce recidivism. This is supported by the findings of a study conducted by Gendreau, Goggin and Cullen (1999), which analysed fifty (50) studies involving over 300,000 offenders conducted to examine whether prison sentences reduce recidivism and meet the goal of deterrence. The study revealed that imprisonment did not reduce recidivism, and longer sentences were associated with a 3% increase in recidivism. The study also found no deterrent effect on offender risk, with both low- and high-risk offenders showing small increases in recidivism. Low-risk offenders were slightly more likely to commit new offences than high-risk offenders, suggesting that prison may serve as a “school for crime.” Regardless of the type of analysis, no evidence for a crime deterrent function was found; hence, the argument that the prison sentence is a powerful deterrent tool is flawed. In the Ghanaian context, a study conducted by Antwi (2015) on the social reintegration of offenders and recidivism revealed that offenders returning home safely to lead law-abiding lives is a challenging task, as hundreds of them relapse into criminal behaviour after release, with 24% of ex-offenders recidivating repeatedly. The social interactions between inmates are believed to contribute to high recidivism rates and null or criminogenic prison effects, rather than deterring them.
Also, to justify the position that prison sentences do not reduce recidivism, consider the case of Charles Quansah, a mechanic from Adenta, Ghana, who was suspected in the murders of nine women. Records during his arrest indicated that he was previously under police surveillance and was jailed for rape in 1986, robbery in 1987, and robbery in 1996. Quansah was convicted of strangulation and sentenced to death. In 2003, he denied killing any of the nine women he was convicted of or the 23 women he was suspected of murdering, and he claimed he was tortured while in police custody. Quansah’s case justifies why it is being argued that prison sentences do not reduce recidivism because if prison is effective in reducing recidivism, Quansah would not have re-offended after previous prison convictions.
Based on deterrence, prison terms also serve as a warning to the general population about what will happen if they commit a crime. Proponents of incarceration argue that jail sentences convey to the general public the negative effects of committing crimes. This idea is as ideal as it sounds but barely effective because the increasing population of prison inmates in Ghana is not happening due to recidivism; first-time offenders are contributing to the increasing population in the prisons. In any case, there is no lesson more realistic than experience, so if people who have tasted inhumane treatment in prisons are not deterred by prison, how can anyone argue that those who have not experienced the hardship in prison would be deterred by prison? So if prison is serving as a deterrent, then it would have been argued as an effective form of punishment, but in this case, prison has failed to deter both first-time offenders and reduce recidivism.
Others argue in support of the prison sentence as an effective form of punishment because prison serves as a safeguard against future criminal activities, ensuring the safety of the public and providing justice to the victims and the general public who are affected by the crime. A prisoner is incapacitated from committing a crime outside the prison, which is what criminologists refer to as “incapacitation,” but the problem with incapacitation as a basis for imprisonment is that it is an idealistic argument. Realistically, with the emergence of technology where one can be in Ghana and commit a crime in the USA, using incapacitation as an argument in support of a prison sentence is deficient. A lot of ex-convicts have confessed to the existence of all manner of criminal activities in prison committed in connivance with prison officers, which is why the prison is termed a school of crime by many. For instance, one ex-convict confessed to a local television station in Ghana called ‘United Television’ that “in the prison, every crime existing outside the walls of the prison is perpetrated by inmates in the prison as well, for instance, drug trade, assault, murder, homosexuality, which is a criminal offence in the context of Ghana, cyber fraud such as romance scams, shopping scams, gold scams, identity fraud, mobile money fraud, stranded passengers, investment fraud, inheritance scam, raffle scheme, long service award, false SMS, sick child scheme, police arrest scheme, transaction reverse scheme, and spiritual schemes, fraudulent SIM swap scheme, etc.).
The question remains: how does a system meant to punish offenders and transform them yet provide an avenue for them to commit more crimes be classified as effective? Though prison is ideally meant to incapacitate criminals, it is not effective in that regard because the prison system has turned out to be a school that trains criminals and churns out more criminals. Therefore, the argument supporting prison as an effective form of punishment, citing incapacitation, is flawed simply because inmates are more capable of committing crimes while in prison. This is supported by the findings of a study conducted by Omane-Addo & Ackah (2021) on illicit drug use among prisoners in Ghana prisons using establishments, namely James Camp Prisons in Accra, Medium Security Prisons, Nsawam in the Eastern Region, Ankaful Main Camp Prison in the Central Region, and Kumasi Central Prison in Ashanti Region, as a case study. The study found that 77% of illicit drug users in prisons have previous records, and 56% were incarcerated for drug-related offences. Access to drugs was found to be 72.5% through visitors, family, and friends, while 15% received supplies from prison staff. Cannabis was the most common drug, followed by depressants like Valium and alcohol, stimulants like cocaine, heroin, caffeine, tobacco, and hallucinogens.
Prison is ideally meant to rehabilitate, which is a very positive idea. According to Madison (2021), rehabilitation is the process of educating and preparing criminals to reintegrate into society, aiming to address the root causes of crime to ensure they can live a crime-free life upon release from prison. It is a very laudable idea, but its effectiveness can hardly be guaranteed, especially in Ghana, where people return from prison in a worse state than they went. In fact, how can a prison that is a school of crime rehabilitate an individual? A prison where people learn the hardest form of crime can hardly transform an individual. For instance, in Ghana, the prison system is characterised by inhumane conditions hence defeating the purpose of rehabilitation. For instance, in the case of Quansah, who denied killing any of the nine women he was convicted of or the 23 women he was suspected of murdering, he claimed he was tortured while in police custody. This is an example of the inhumane treatment that inmates are going through in a facility that is meant to rehabilitate them. The reality is that the prison system as it is operated is not an effective form of punishment. This is because punishment in its right sense is to reform, but rehabilitation cannot operate under inhumane conditions, as is happening currently in many prison facilities that, instead of reforming, are torturing and dooming inmates. The prison facilities are inhumane, overpopulated, and riddled with the attendant threat of the outbreak of diseases, negative survival behaviours, and human rights abuses. Rehabilitation cannot be actualised under such conditions, hence making prison an ineffective form of punishment. Also, if the prison system through rehabilitation is effective, the results would have been visible in reducing recidivism.
The goal of punishment is to reform and deter, not to subject people to doom. The reality of the prison system, especially in the context of Ghana, is the direct opposite of reforming and deterring people, hence its ineffectiveness. It is therefore difficult to argue in support of prison being an effective form of punishment because reality will always defeat such an argument. Considering the failure of the prison system to serve as a deterrent, incapacitate, and rehabilitate prisoners, it indicates that prison is not an effective form of punishment. It is therefore appropriate for a more serious discussion on reforms that would help replace the failing system, especially in the context of Ghana and any other prison system that shares similar difficulties with the prison system in Ghana. This is because, if well considered, the government spends so much on the running of the prison system, such resources could be diverted to other effective means of punishment to benefit the entire country.
According to the Howard League for Penal Reforms: “The prison system is like a river. The wider it gets, the faster it flows – and the harder it becomes to swim against the tide. Rather than being guided to safer shores, those in the middle are swept into deeper currents of crime, violence and despair. What began as a trickle turns into a torrent, with problems in prisons spilling into the towns and cities around them.”
The argument espoused in support of why prison is not an effective form of punishment is not to suggest that the prison system should be completely exterminated. Prison conditions as argued by Penal Reform International should not be seen as an additional punishment but as a sanction to hold individuals accountable and protect society. While they deprive individuals of liberty and impact other rights like freedom of movement, they retain their human rights and fundamental freedoms. However, prisons often fail to meet basic standards, and many prison staff view harsh treatment as a legitimate way to deal with their subordinates. To make prison an effective form of punishment, the following reforms should be employed in the case of Ghana to change the face of the system;
- Prison sentences should be reserved for major criminal offences that threaten the lives of the people in society while other types of sentencing including community service employed for minor criminal offences to help decongest the prisons.
- Rehabilitation programmes where among other things the inmates are provided with formal and informal education including distance education, vocation/skills training and agricultural activities should be prioritized to prepare inmates for life outside the prison.
- Humane detention conditions increase the willingness and ability of individuals to respond to rehabilitative programs. Therefore, reforms should target improving the conditions existing in the prisons to facilitate effective rehabilitation programmes. For instance, the provision of adequate accommodation, food, water, sanitation, healthcare, light, fresh air, and exercise is crucial for overall well-being.
- There should be drug policies and rehabilitation programmes in the prisons. Drug treatment programmes and policies should be instituted to rehabilitate and treat illicit drug users in prisons in Ghana. In Ghana, most prisoners and prison staff are not aware of any drug policy and treatment programmes for problematic drug users in prison as reported by a study conducted by Omane-Addo & Ackah (2021) on illicit drug use among prisoners in Ghana prisons. This indicates the non-existence of drug policies and rehabilitation programmes in the prison system in Ghana.
Author’s Profile: Abdul-Salam Shaibu is an Investigator and Cybersecurity Practitioner. He had his professional training at the Detective Training Academy, Ghana Police Service, as well as a Professional Diploma in Database Management from IPMC. He holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Computer Engineering from Ghana Communication Technology University and a Master of Science in Digital Forensics and Cybersecurity from the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA). A certificate in Cybersecurity Investigations and Digital Forensics at the e-Crime Bureau, among other numerous courses and certifications. He is also a student at the GIMPA Faculty of Law pursuing a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) Degree. He is a Businessman and an Entrepreneur. The author’s research interests are in IT, Cybersecurity, Law, Risk Management, Security, and Criminal Psychology.
Please address all correspondence to: Abdul-Salam Shaibu by Phone: at (+233) 026 530 8783 and by email at shaibubaba80@gmail.com
REFERENCE
Coyle, A. G. (2023). Prison. Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved on September 29, 2023 https://www.britannica.com/topic/prison
Mackenzie, D. L. (2001). Sentencing and Corrections in the 21st Century: Setting the Stage for the Future. Retrieved on September 30, 2023 from https://www.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh241/files/archives/ncjrs/189106-2.pdf
Harding, D.J. (2019). Do Prisons Make Us Safer? Retrieved on October 02, 2023 from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-prisons-make-us-safer/
Gendreau, P. Goggin, C., & Cullen, F. T. (1999). The Effects of Prison Sentences on Recidivism. Retrieved from www.sgc.gc.ca on October 02, 2023
Dahl, G.B., & Mogstad, M. (2020). The Benefits of Rehabilitative Incarceration. Retrieved from https://www.nber.org/reporter/2020number1/benefits-rehabilitative-incarceration#:~:text=Recidivism%2C%20Employment%2C%20and%20Job%20Training&text=We%20find%20that%20incarceration%20lowers,per%20individual%20by%2010%20charges. On October 01, 2023
Omane-Addo, F., & Ackah, D. (2021). Illicit Drug Use Among Inmates in Ghana Prisons: A Case Study of Ghana Prisons Service. Dama Academic Scholarly & Scientific Research Society. Retrieved from https://damaacademia.com/dasjr/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/DASJR-Format-021-09-001.pdf on October, 03 2023.
Antwi, A. (2015). Social Reintegration of Offenders and Recidivism in Ghana. Retrieved on October 03, 2023 from https://www.scirp.org/(S(351jmbntvnsjt1aadkposzje))/reference/referencespapers.aspx?referenceid=2379241
