Examining cultural barriers and the justification for the Non-Custodial Sentence Bill’s implementation in Ghana

Ghana has been ranked as one of the most peaceful countries in Africa, and this comes as many factors including its legal system of seeking justice for everyone. Punishments have long existed before the colonial era and these punishments are embedded in Ghana’s legal systems. Presently, the ultimate outcome for petty offense is imprisonment which violate some Fundamental Human Rights of offenders while contravening both international conventions like UDHR and national laws like the 1992 constitution. Despite efforts of some Ghanaians and government initiatives to introduce the Non-custodial sentence, it still remains unattainable and there is a continual over reliance on incarceration which continues to violates human rights like dignity, food accommodation or shelter, just to mention a few. In all of this, the gap identified is that, most researches focus on the need to implement a Non-Custodial Sentence due to the overcrowded nature of the prisons. However, these researches tend to overlook how the overreliance of imprisonment and the lack of this legislation (Non-custodial Sentence) continually abuse the human right of inmates. Thus, through a qualitative method, the research answered the “why, how and what” questions using secondary data by reviewing literatures from various scholars and articles, journals, reports and documentaries. The research sought to explore how the non-existence of a NCS violates prisoners basic rights through incarceration. It further studies cultural factors that hinders the implementation of the non-custodial sentence. Through the lenses of Legal frameworks such as Legal Culture, Legal Consciousness and a Right Based-Approach, the research also sought answers to the above questions. After intensive review of related literatures and analysing data, it was found that Ghana’s over-reliance on imprisonment violate basic rights like dignity, food, accommodation, access to sanitation and health care, fair trial and liberty of the prisoner. Traditional and cultural beliefs, lack of knowledge on NCS, institutional constraint and the complex legislative procedure among others were also impediments to Ghana’s non-custodial sentence.