An ex-convict who was sentenced to 30 years imprison, Tetteh Teye, has revealed that there was always a chaotic situation in the prison yard whenever there’s a shortage of marijuana, also known as ‘wee’, in the detention facility.
According to him, many of the inmates become charged and rowdy when they have no access to the banned narcotic substance which they smoke to get them in ‘good spirit’.
“There are many ‘ghettos’ in the Prisons where inmates smoke marijuana, cigarettes, and other substances. The Prison officers are aware of what I’m saying. Whenever there’s no supply of marijuana in the prisons, the inmates become charged and there are disturbances that lead to fights among some of the inmates which sometimes result in injuries.
But when marijuana is available in the prison yard then there’s peace and everything moves on smoothly,” he told Kasapa FM Tuesday.
He said there was no proper reformation in Ghana’s prisons as many people come out worse off than they were before serving their jail term.
There have been media reports suggesting that often, against the rules and regulations, some prison officers have bought Indian Hemp, otherwise known as ‘wee,’ from the black market, and supplied same to inmates at the prison for a fee.
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The Chronicle Newspaper in 2010, reported that an officer at the Sekondi Prison, Lance Corporal Newton Avorgla, was caught carrying and supplying the Indian hemp to the inmates for an undisclosed amount of money.
Surprisingly the authorities at the prison failed to hand over the officer to the police for prosecution, even though he was caught with the ‘leaves’.
The inmates told this paper that the suspect had been supplying them with the ‘wee’ for a fee for a long time, but nobody dared challenge him.
According to them, the said Prison Officer sometimes collected money from the inmates in advance, before supplying them with the substance.
The Commander of the prisons at that time, Mr. Chris Larvi, confirmed the story when contacted him, and added that the suspect confessed to the crime when he was interrogated.
When asked by the paper why the suspect and the substances were not handed over to the police for both examination and possible interrogation, the Prison Commander could not give a definite answer to the question.
He rather told the reporter that the suspect, apparently sensing the danger that his conduct might be reported to the police, went AWOL (absent without leave), and has since not been sighted. Commander Larvi further told The Chronicle that Lance Corporal Newton Avorgla had been dismissed from the Prisons Service and that a search had also been mounted to locate, arrest, and hand him over to the police, for the law to deal with him.