COUNSELLING NEEDS OF PRISONERS IN GHANA: A STUDY OF CENTRAL AND ASHANTI REGIONS

ABSTRACT Counselling plays a central role in reforming prisoners to re-live their lives in society with minimum problems. However, in many occasions, this essential service is relegated to the background. This study, therefore, examined the background characteristics of the prisoners, their perceptions on counselling services, their counselling needs, counselling programmes designed to meet the needs of inmates, and the roles of stakeholders in meeting such counselling needs. The study was undertaken at the Ankaful and Kumasi Central Prisons. A descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. A total of 203 respondents were sampled for the study. Stratified random sampling technique was used to sample respondents from the two prisons. Descriptive statistics such as frequencies, percentages, means and standard deviations were used to analyse the data. The study was analysed with SPSS version 17 and Microsoft Excel 2010 Professional Edition. The study found that background characteristics of the inmates were critical in designing counselling programmes for them. The inmates were uncomfortable with the level of privacy during counselling and the gender sensitivity to the counsellors who provide the service. Some of the inmates required counselling to overcome their feelings of guilt, bitterness and neglect from their families. The study recommends that the counselling units should consider the gender preference of the inmates before assigning counsellors to them, while the government, NGOs, religious groups and other philanthropist institutions and individuals can help rejuvenate the vocational training centres at the prisons