The lunch was to show love and fellowship with them during the festive season and also find out how life had been for them since their discharge, if there were progresses or challenges, and also to know how best to assist them where the need be or appeal to stakeholders who can be of help to them.

Mr Jonathan Osei Owusu, Founder, POS Foundation, said the JFAP was instituted in 2007 to set up in-prison mobile special courts to adjudicate remand cases.

Over the years there had been a significant reduction of remand prisoners across the country, due to the programme, he said.

He said statistics from the Ghana Prisons Service indicated that since the inception of the programme, remand prisoners' population had reduced drastically from 33 per cent to 13 per cent and they hope to achieve a single digit percentage in the next two years.

Mr Osei Owusu said the programme dealt with remand cases of people who have been on remand from five to 20 years.

He said they were looking forward to expanding the programme to cover other components that the programme does not address to enable it have the full impact it deserved , so that people who demanded justice but were marginalized in society could also be reached in terms of justice, rehabilitation, reformation, and reintegration.

Mr Owusu said the lunch was to also restart life for those beneficiaries expressing the hope that with the New Year, they were looking forward to what must be done beyond the return, to make them feel part of society.

He noted that their challenge was funding but expressed appreciation to the Government for funding the programme in 2019 and called on other donors who were interested in the justice system and bringing justice to many, to help push the agenda towards the realization of justice for all and not leaving anybody behind.

He also appealed to families to be willing to support relatives on remand and also welcome them upon discharge, love, and accept them and let them feel part of society, since they were only accused and kept on remand for years.

Dr Baz Dreisinger of INN, expressed satisfaction with the work of POS in Ghana and was optimistic of seeing their work as a model for the continent and many countries around the world, saying, it was important to think about more innovative ways of administering justice, instead of just punishing.

She said their work was all about elevation and hoped POS would use the platform to expose them to audiences both nationally and internationally, gaining public support and getting recognition for what they did.

She said "it is about getting the public to think differently about crime and justice and what it looks like and about how the POS is truly presentative of what justice should look like. When you have public support, it's easier to do the work, change the narrative and conversation in the public space".

Dr Dreisinger noted that the issues about prisons was unpopular and it was not easy to find support for it and as such giving POS the platform, helps them also to get funding support for their survival to keep the programme running.

One beneficiary of the Programme, Kwame Asante, from Kyebi Apapam who was accused for the murder of his wife and stayed in remand for nine years until he was listed for the programme and benefited from it, in 2019 expressed appreciation to POS Foundation for the programme and the support he has received so far.

He said since his return home he has been accepted by both family and society and was currently engaged in farming, saying his stay in the prison has helped him become a better person.

He prayed for God's blessings for POS for them to continue with the good work and also expressed appreciation to his family for the support over the years.

The beneficiaries were later presented with bags of rice, cooking oil, tin tomatoes, and an amount of Ghc250.00 each.