Kofi Ampeah Woode
The Malakal Detention Facility in South Sudan has commenced a five-day training programme for South Sudan National Prisons Service (SSNPS) to equip 50 of its personnel with adequate knowledge and skill, as part of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) peacekeeping mandate which tasks UN Corrections and Advisors to support host governments to strengthen prisons and criminal justice systems.
The training program which is dubbed “South Sudan Prisons Act” under the auspices of the UNMISS Correctional Service, takes place at the Malakal Central Prisons from Monday 19 to Friday 23 December, 2022 and will take the participants through various prison security simulation exercises such as Prison Gate Siege, Practical and Tactical Handcuffing (PATH) and Hostage Crisis in a Correctional Facility.
The training regime will additionally teach lessons on Justification for Use of Force, Use of Force, Riot Control Tactics, Negotiations, Searches, Prison Management Admission Procedures, and Prisoners’ Rights.
The training which has the rationale of enabling participants to apply multidisciplinary approach in solving prison disturbances, will also work towards empowering all participants to achieve mastery of discipline-specific and cross-cutting core correctional competencies, and to be well-informed about challenges that can confront them as Correctional Officers.
The facilitators of the program are drawn from Correctional Officers from Ghana, Liberia, Tanzania and Serbia, namely Superintendent of Prisons (Supt) Fred Johnson – UNMISS/GH/Prisons/OPS, Supt Hilda Kunyo Mmari, Supt Mark Kardor, Deputy Superintendent of Prisons (DSP) Agatha Jato-Kaleo, and Ivica Markovic – Commander of the Malakal Detention Facility.
UN Peacekeeping Justice and Corrections Services (JCS) aims at ensuring that offenders can serve out their sentences in a humane environment, as the first step towards their eventual reintegration as productive members of society.
Equipped with justice and corrections expertise, and with support from JCS, peacekeeping missions assist host countries to deliver essential justice and prison services, strengthen criminal justice systems, and facilitate the rule of law reforms by extending justice and corrections institutions in conflict-affected areas, and by enhancing prison security and management.
According to the UNMISS mandate, UN Corrections and Advisors are tasked with supporting the government in strengthening prisons and criminal justice systems to end prolonged, arbitrary detention and establishing a safe, secure and humane prison system, however, UN’s Action for Peacekeeping (A4P) enables host countries and other stakeholders to take appropriate measures to bring to justice, perpetrators of criminal acts against UN peacekeepers.
Corrections support is linked to the overall objective of stabilization of the host-country, and is to ensure the early functioning of key corrections areas while laying the foundations for longer-term corrections reform efforts undertaken by other partners, for corrections reform efforts are complex and long-term undertakings, which extend beyond the time frame of peace operations.
