Stop hard labour convictions, you are correcting not punishing, says PRISCCA
COURTS must stop convicting offenders to hard labour as the country moves from punitive punishment to correction, says the Prison Care and Counselling Association (PRISCCA).
PRISCCA executive director, Dr Godfrey Malembeka said words of stigma such as convicting an offender with hard labour should be avoided by the courts of law when passing a ruling.
Dr. Malembeka said in an interview that as the country moves from punitive punishment of offenders to correction, slapping a jail sentence on a convict with hard labor should be avoided by the courts of law.
“I appeal to all the judges and magistrates to stop hard labor punishment of the offenders, you are correcting people not punishing them, we don’t want words of stigma,” said Dr. Malembeka.
He said the death penalty should also be abolished because it was contradicting the country’s paradigm shift from punitive punishment to correction.
Dr. Malembeka explained that abolishing the death sentence would contribute immensely to decongesting the condemned section at the Kabwe Maximum Security Correctional Centre which has about 424 against the initial holding capacity of 48 inmates.
He has also appealed to the judiciary to stop “court circuiting” the sending of judges to provinces which does not have judges only when funds for accommodation are made available which he said was delaying the access of justice by the accused.
“Court circuiting we don’t want it, we need judges in all the provinces, we only have few judges in Southern, Lusaka, Central and Copperbelt and Eastern provinces and this contributes to delay to access justice,” said Dr. Malembeka.