Lawyer and author, Daniel Korang has said he believes that the custodial sentence does not provide deterrence, as the sanction intends to achieve.

The lawyer made his comment alluding to the founder of the now-defunct Capital Bank, William Ato Essien, evading a jail sentence.

According to the lawyer, Ato Esien had caused the state a massive financial loss, so in his opinion, he did not consider a sentence to serve life in jail a befitting sanction for the accused.

"My view is that a custodial sentence does not deter as we think it does," he said on JoyNews' Newsfile on Saturday.

Daniel Korang questioned whether imprisonment was able to achieve the intended effect, despite the lawyer's acknowledgment that it does produce a type of deterrence.

"… But do these things really deter? Of course, we have general deterrence as well as specific deterrence, which means that the criminal involved would be deterred in some way, and the public might also fear committing a crime."

The lawyer emphasised that Ato Essien’s case involved the economic interests of the country.

Therefore, he was of the view that the state should focus on recovery rather than a jail sentence.

“But the point that we should understand in this discussion is that this is not an ordinary crime. It is a crime involving the economic interest of Ghana, and it is important that we emphasise recovery than custodial sentence,” he said.