The Deputy Director of Prisons in charge of Technical Services, Ben Quaye, said prisoners, be they citizens or foreign national, have a right which ought to be protected. “Whether they are citizens or aliens, their rights are protected by the constitution and other international protocols which guarantee the rights of all persons held in any form of detention. “You therefore have a responsibility to ensure that the rights of the inmates are respected, protected and promoted.” Mr. Ben Quaye was speaking at the passing out ceremony of 393 recruits of the Prison Service in Accra, on Friday. Consquently, he said, acts of brutalities and callousness on the part of any officer will not be tolerated, adding that the Prison Service has no culture of shielding recalcitrant officers. Mr Quaye said as officers, they were expected to translate the knowledge and skills they had acquired during their training into practice in the discharge of their duties. He noted that the Prison Service is doing everything possible to reform inmates so that they could acquire skills, training, or further their education whiles in custody. “The service is extending its traditional role beyond that of merely ensuring the safe custody of inmates to undertaking effective information and rehabilitation of inmates for their successful reintegration into society as useful citizens.” He said that the Service had taken delivery of carpentry equipment and industrial sewing machines as well as knitting and cutting machines to revamp some of its workshops to train inmates and also generate revenue internally to support government’s expenditure on the service. Mr Quaye said as part of the service’s reformation and rehabilitation programme for inmates, educational programmes, both formal and non-formal, had started on pilot basis at the Nsawam Medium Security Prisons, Kumasi, Wa Tamale Central Prison as well as some prison establishments in the Central region. The programme, he said, was aimed at providing functional literacy for the illiterates, continuing education for school dropouts, and also training inmates in information communication technology. Mr Quaye appealed to the general public to assist the Service to transform the inmates by accepting them into society after their release. Source: Ghanaian Times