“Stop calling Suspects as Criminals”

The Prisons Care and Counseling Association [PRISCCA], organization has requested the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Services Permanent Secretary to advise public and private media houses in the country to stop calling suspects apprehended by law enforcement officers as “criminals” before they are even arraigned before the courts of law and convicted accordingly.

PRISCCA Executive director Geoffrey Malembeka said the act is not only wrong but it is also stigmatizing, most especially for some of those who may be acquitted by the courts of law after trials because the media does not re-announce their innocence.
Mr. Malembeka noted that it’s indisputable that society takes media reports and law enforcement agents as gospel truth thereby making it difficult to reintegrate after acquittals or discharges.
“Our intention is not to support those committing crimes but merely to interpret that they should be called criminals after conviction on a clear understanding that as the Constitution Article 18 (Sub-Section 2) spells out ‘everyone is innocent until proven guilty by the court of law’. “He said.
And PRISSCA executive director Godfrey malembeka has cautioned law enforcements agents to desist from forcing suspects to accept charges they have alleged committed so as to serve them from imprisonment.
Mr. Malembeka indicated that this is according to reports across the ten provinces that the organization has established in the ten provinces indicating that few law enforcement agencies are forcing suspects to accept the charges they are allegedly committed to save them from imprisonment.
“Reports from the pre-admission and post-discharge psychosocial counseling desks [PPPCDs] that PRISCCA has established at the 10 major provincial prisons and also from our legal sites at the Subordinate Court Complex have indicated that a few law enforcement agents are forcing suspects to accept charges they are alleged to have committed so as to save them from imprisonment and instead be given non-custodial sentences “he said.