Rehabilitation in Ghana: Assessing Prison Conditions and Effectiveness of Interventions for Incarcerated Adults

In this chapter, we assess the extent to which the penal system in Ghana has adopted rehabilitation as a fundamental principle and a means to attaining eventual desistance among persons in custody. We examine the history of incarceration in Ghana and how the advent of colonialism supplanted the traditional rehabilitation approach underpinned by restitution and community reintegration. We examined rehabilitation ideals as a process of restoring offenders to full citizenship and reaffirming the fundamental belief in the dignity of the person. The chapter reviews the reality of incarceration in Ghana and how the conditions of incarcerated individuals violate rehabilitation principles and the implications of such violations for the individual and society. The analysis revealed that prisons are underfunded, overcrowded, and understaffed. Furthermore, the prisons system is focused primarily on safe custody of persons serving prison sentences. Rehabilitation of inmates remains on the periphery. Where rehabilitation programmes exist, they are focused primarily on vocational training and basic skills acquisition. The review found a disconnect between existing legislations and recent effort to reform prisons to ensure that they meet their reformative goals. We conclude with some reflections on how rehabilitation could be reimagined and articulated within a resource constraint context such as Ghana.