A/HRC/31/57/Add.2 D. Prisons Service 30. The GPS reports that 14,491 inmates are currently incarcerated inside the country’s 43 prisons, despite an authorized holding capacity of 9,875 prisoners. This amounts to 47% overcrowding (or 147% over-capacity; most penologists consider 120% over capacity to be “critical”) – figures that are greater than in November 2013. 11,757 inmates are convicted prisoners while 2,734, or approximately 19%, are remand detainees. The rate of remand detainees has dropped from an estimated 20–25% in 2013, but there is some inconsistency in reported figures, with other Government estimates reporting the rate of remand detainees as amounting to 25% or one third. 31. The rates of overcrowding in some prisons (including Kumasi, Sunyani, Koforidua, Navrongo, Tamale, and Sekondi) range from 50% to 300% (150 to 400% over capacity), leading to severe health and hygiene problems that threaten not just inmates and officers, but also outside communities. Official figures are based on the number of beds available in relation to the prison population, underestimating the true rate of overcrowding. The Special Rapporteur recalls the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture’s recently articulated minimum standards for personal living spaces for prisoners, according to which at least 4 square meters of living space per prisoner in a multi-occupancy cell are required. 32. The Special Rapporteur congratulates the GPS for its honest appraisal of challenges it encounters with regards to conditions in prisons, and with regards to the plight of remand prisoners, who are sometimes kept in custody illegally for years with expired or faulty warrants. He welcomes the Service’s commitment to “initiate the necessary procedures to enable [it to] take over the administration of remand prisoners,”2 and urges the Government to bring the responsibility for remand prisoners under its authority, rather than that of the Police Service, as a way to ensure that all remand detainees are brought to court in a timely manner and not detained beyond the expiry of their warrants. 33. The shift from a punitive penal system to a more modern approach incorporating reform, rehabilitation, and reintegration of prisoners, noted in November 2013, continues to inspire the GPS’s endeavors, and there is a renewed impetus to implement a holistic approach of restorative justice and ensure that prisons are no longer regarded and treated as facilities “where criminals are dumped.” Efforts to educate the public about deplorable prison conditions, prisoners’ fundamental rights, and the need to foster their rehabilitation and reintegration into society – premised on the important understanding that “today’s prisoner is tomorrow’s neighbor” – are praiseworthy. Prison conditions have gained the attention of policy-makers, including President Mahama, who became the first sitting Ghanaian president to visit a prison (Nsawam) in July 2015, and were the subject of a parliamentary debate in the same month. While the Special Rapporteur welcomes the Government’s pledge to provide for 50 million additional GHS for the 2016 fiscal year to improve infrastructure in prisons to expand and renovate facilities, he notes that adequate reform will require sustained, long-term budgetary allocation and technical and human capacity-building, particularly to achieve the goals of refurbishing outdated and dilapidated prison infrastructure; urgent improvement in delivery of healthcare services and sanitation; the development of strategic partnerships; and concerted implementation efforts. 34. Nevertheless, chronic infrastructural and resource deficits, combined with a dysfunctional criminal justice system, plague the penal system and give rise to violations of fundamental human rights. The Prisons’ Service 2015 – 2025 Ten Year Strategic Plan acknowledges the severe shortcomings of the prison system, which result in inhumane living conditions and the denial of prisoners’ fundamental human rights, and references the 2 10 Ten-Year Strategic Plan, 2015 – 2025.