The construction work on the Maximum Security Prison at Ankaful is steadily progressing and will soon be completed, Air Marshal John Asamoah Bruce (Rtd) has said.

He said after its commissioning, the prison would take 2,000 high risk prisoners to ease the current overcrowding in the country's prisons.

Air Marshal Bruce said this when he inaugurated the Brong-Ahafo Regional Prisons Committee in Sunyani on Thursday.

The nine-member committee is chaired by Mr. Kwadwo Nyamekye-Marfo, Regional Minister with members including representatives of the Ghana Prisons Service (GPS), Attorney General's Department, Ghana Bar Association, Ghana Health Service and Social Welfare.

Others are drawn from the Ghana Medical Association, House of Chiefs and Local Council of Churches.

Air Marshal Bruce said; "A Regional Prisons Committee shall advice the Prisons Service Council on any matter relating to the administration and of the prison service in the region," as stated in Article 209 (2) of the 1992 Constitution.

Air marshal Bruce noted that prisons in the country were unable to carry out their mandates of reformation because many conditions made it impossible for prisoners to become better citizens.

He said even though the Ghana Prisons Service was doing its best under the circumstances, conditions in the prisons were still deplorable especially with overcrowding and inadequate access to physical and mental healthcare.

Air Marshal Bruce said because of these challenges, many prisoners were released into society unprepared to participate productively and they however slipped into recidivism.

He said the current prison systems in the country were merely warehousing offenders and that this needed an urgent attention to be reversed.

Air Marshal Bruce said this required a complete societal behavioural change as well as emphasis on reformation and rehabilitation such as education and work skills as proper end of justice and not retribution.

He called on the committee to collaborate with members of the Ghana Prisons Service, stakeholders and relevant institutions to carry out its functions effectively.

Mr. Eric Opoku, Deputy Regional Minister, said the Ghana Prisons Service was an adjunct of the criminal system of Ghana and contributed to the maintenance of internal security by maintaining an efficient, humane and safe reformatory system.

He noted that prison service was not a body that had been set up to mete out cruel treatment to prisoners but rather reform inmates through prison treatment regimes.

Reforming prisoners, Mr. Opoku said, required a holistic approach and therefore needed a collaborative effort between the service, stakeholders and all Ghanaians.

Mr Opoku expressed concern about the delay in criminal court proceedings which sometimes took a long period of time leading to long years of remand of suspects.

Mr. Michael Kofi Bansah, Acting Director General of the Ghana Prisons Service, said reformation of inmates was a shared responsibility and appealed to the general public to accept and embrace into society those who had finished serving their sentence.

Justice Francis Opoku, a Supervising High Court Judge, who administered the oaths of secrecy and allegiance, expressed concern about the inhumane treatment being meted out to prisoners.