Help ex-convicts back on track

By Doreen Hammond
FOR being at the wrong place at the wrong time, Ken has had to spend nine years and six months of his life in jail for a robbery he claims he knows nothing about to date. According to Ken, he was with some friends in a house at Mamprobi in Accra when the Police rounded them up in a swoop and sent them to the Mamprobi Police Station.
Then in Senior Secondary School Form two, Ken’s nightmare was just about to begin as he was moved to the Nima Police Station Cells, then to the CID headquarters before he finally found himself as a remand prisoner at the Nsawam Prisons.
With no money to get good legal counsel, Ken had to remain on remand without trial for those nine years and six months.
As he spoke to the Daily Graphic about his bitterness and ordeal, Ken intermittently had to pause as he came close to tears.
Call it fate, call it destiny, Ken came out of prison a year ago by the kind courtesy of the justice for all programme which looked into his case and found that he could not be held that long without trial and therefore the necessary procedures were put in place which got him his freedom.
But that was not to be the end of his predicament. He was released from prison with nothing to find his feet in society except his strong feeling to seek revenge which he thought would be to burn the house in which he was arrested on that day.
His family have not been supportive, “ they still do not feel comfortable with me around and I find that very sad”.
This is part of the story of a convict who claims innocence but has had to suffer for a crime he did not commit.
At the Royal House Chapel in Accra where I found Ken was another convict, Ameyaw, who on the contrary, admits to committing series of robberies , found himself in a shoot out with the Police, was shot in the leg and ended up in prison.
Ameyaw speaks of how he dropped out of primary school at age 10. He recounts how some friends he made eventually turned him into a big time armed robber.
Because he was small when he joined the gang, he was passed through holes made to house the old type of air conditioners to gain access into homes for robbery.
With time, Ameyaw left home because “ I was seeing a lot of money, more than my parents could ever give me” ,he recalls.
At 16, he rented his own apartment and was steeped deep in robbery. To fortify himself, Ameyaw said he and his gang visited Mallams in the Volta Region, Paga and La Cote D’ivoire where they were given various charms, some in the form of powder which put their victims to sleep until they had finished their operation and left. Other charms took away from them the human feeling of pity. They had no sympathy for their victims.
He said they also had boxer shorts that made them disappear or gave those who tried to pursue them a wrong impression as to where they were actually heading.
According to Ameyaw, their informants were househelps and private security guards in people’s homes.
This kind of criminal life was however to end for him when he and his two other gang members went in search of money for an Easter which was approaching.
When they entered the house they were to rob, they found a middle-aged woman sitting alone in the living room reading her Bible deep in the night.
They tied her up, put her in a bath tub in the house and opened the hot water tap over her after they had taken whatever they wanted from the house and left.
According to Ameyaw, the sight of the Bible had given him the feeling that something terrible would happen to them, but his friends urged him to go on. If only he had obeyed his first impulse, he could have escaped what was about to face him and change his life again forever.
They had not gone too far when the police caught up with them and when they felt uncomfortable with the questions they were being asked, they sped off as they shot at the police. The police gave them a chase, shot his two friends dead but he survived with a shot to his leg.
After spending seven years in prison, Ameyaw is out and says he is treated like “a mad dog any time I near home”. Like Ken, the prison authorities released him with nothing to support himself except his transport fare.
Ken and Ameyaw are among the 14 graduates of the Royal House Chapel’s Restoration School this year. The good news is that Ken is back in school getting ready to sit the WASSCE and Ameyaw has been employed by the church.
The school was set up two years ago by Rev. Sam Korankye Ankrah, General Overseer of the church two years ago with the intention of restoring social deviants such as ex-convicts, prostitutes, alcoholics and drug addicts back to their normal selves.
In an Interview with Rev. Mrs Rita Korankye Ankrah, the wife of Rev. Ankrah who administers the school, she explained that the school’s curriculum included teaching on forgiveness, how to handle depression, dealing with fear and anger and faithfulness.
She said the programme had been designed to help equip such otherwise social misfits who become their students for reintegration into the society. The students are also provided with role models to mentor them and are given full scholarship to study whatever they wish.
Mrs Korankye Ankrah said the students were also given some stipend to live on for work they did around the church, were fed and given clothing by the church.
This, the church is able to do from money it receives through tithes and collection from the members of the church.
She said the idea to start the school was conceived by her husband when he celebrated his 50th birthday with inmates of the Nsawam prisons where he interacted with and fed over 3,000 inmates . When?
“He then asked himself what next after the visit, and what next after prison life and that was when the idea of the school of restoration came to him” Mrs Korankye Ankrah said.
Ken and Ameyaw talk of the hardship of prison life with no proper sleeping places, bad food and insanitary conditions. They said they did not go through any programme that prepared them for life outside prison and were therefore quick to join the school when they heard about it. To them, the Royal House Chapel is a safe haven.
The question that therefore comes to mind is whether our prisons are reforming its inmates and after serving time, what awaits the ex-convict?
In his article on the challenges prisoners face after their release, Mr Abundant Robert Awolugutu, Assistant Director of the Kumasi Central Prisons recognises the shortcomings of the country’s Prison Service in this direction and attributes it to lack of adequate funding.
He mentions homelessness, joblessness and relationship factors as a result of being behind bars as some of the challenges faced by the prisoner who is released/ex-convict.
As a result of financial challenges, he said the Ghana Prisons Service provided only transport fares of released prisoners from the prison to the place of conviction of the prisoner.
He is concerned that “when a prisoner arrives at his destination and is without money, how does he get food, water and possibly accommodation without resorting to crime to make up?”
This state of affairs is definitely not the best for society because it leaves the ex-convict vulnerable. The probability of a return to crime for survival becomes real and it is society that ultimately pays the price.
The Royal House Chapel’s effort is commendable but how many of such convicts in this country can it cater for?
The situation calls for a governmental effort to support ex-convicts in the form of a budgetary allocation to set them up on a clean path after serving time.
Meanwhile, the Royal House Chapel has formally set the pace, how many of our churches would follow?
The church must not only be interested in preaching the word for preaching to a hungry and needy soul because it would be like sowing the word among thorns.
More churches and institutions should start similar programmes so that society would go to sleep at night and have a good sleep.



Writer’s e-mail: aamakai@hotmail.com