Counseling needs of prisoners at the Ankaful prisons in the Central Region of Ghana

Abstract

The lives prisoners live are informed and decided on by a number of factors. Most of the time, this determination is based on the emotional and psychological support that is either given or deprived by stakeholders and those dear to incarcerated individuals. The premise of the argument is that all prisoners deserve some form of counselling need but is not all the time they are given such support. On these grounds, Investigating the kinds of counseling needs of inmates at Ankaful Prisons in the Central Region was the study's primary goal. The research was descriptive in nature. The instrument used for data collection was a structured questionnaire and it was purposively administered to sixty (60) respondents within the chosen location. The data was personally collected by the researcher through hard copy forms. The study was analysed with SPSS version 25 and Microsoft Excel 2016 Professional Edition. The findings showed that the counselling needs of prisoners are in the form of physical, emotional, and psychological. It was also found that these needs were provided by private individuals/donors, churches and religious bodies as well as some prison officials at Ankaful Prisons. It was concluded based on these findings that in as much as these counselling needs are provided for the prisoners, they appear to be woefully inadequate.