Living in Ghana vs the United States: Law, Chieftaincy, and Noise (Part 2)

At this point in the four-part “Living in Ghana vs. the United States” series, we will start exploring social differences between the countries. This particular installment, part two in the series, focuses on law enforcement and crime, as they are respectively practiced in the two localities.

CHIEFTAINCY & GANGS

Chieftaincy is actually a thing in Ghana. This system is apparently important in terms of managing real estate, i.e. land sales, in the country. In some areas, chiefs may also be akin to local politicians, resolving conflicts and things of such, as well as engaging in some development.

If you do not live in such an area or are not involved in the local scene like that, for the most part chieftaincies don’t matter. Some royal families are rich while others, not so much. But they’re not likely to get into your personal affairs nor you in theirs.

I recently discovered though that one notable exception to this rule is when a paramount chief dies, which isn’t so often but does happen occasionally. In these instances, an entire town or section of the city may be for instance placed under a curfew.

I experienced something like that a couple of years ago, while living in a certain part of Accra. Even the police, who are employed by the government and not chiefs, were privy to enforcing the curfew. It was like you weren’t supposed to be out after 7pm unless it was for something really serious. That also included non-essential businesses having to shut their doors during the evening, sorta like a lockdown, I guess you could say. Meanwhile, some vendors only operate at night, so they were really affected.

So did it feel intrusive on a human rights’ level? Yes. I was recently told that Ghana’s two most-popular former presidents, Kwame Nkrumah and J. J. Rawlings, both set about minimizing the power of chieftaincies, in the name of national unity. But as it currently stands, this system is intact though again not something you’re likely to notice, except in extreme cases, like funerals and land disputes or again, if you live in an area where they’re more pronounced. Chieftaincies may never be eliminated completely.  But at the same time, they aren’t nearly as influential as in times past, except to some degree in real estate.

COMPARING & CONTRASTING US GANGS VS. GHANAIAN CHIEFTANCIES

In the U.S., we don’t have anything like chiefs. I would say the closest, all things considered, would probably be street gangs.  Like chieftaincies, they preside over defined areas, which they often acquired by force. Also like chiefs, gangbangers, to some degree, serve as a more direct form of protection and conflict resolution as opposed to relying on the police. In other words, both groups are akin to local leaders. But the main difference is that gangs operate completely outside the law.

Moreover, being a high-ranking gang member isn’t based on heredity, nor do gangs tend to have a palpable influence outside of intimidation and threats of violence. Generally speaking, gangs do not possess organized economic power or something to pass on to future generations.  You aren’t likely to hear of, say, the Bloods or Crips buying land. And such entities do not leave anything unanimously constructive behind for future generations.

There are thugs in Ghana, many of whom roll in pairs or packs. Some areas, especially within inner cities, are more afflicted by this phenomenon than others. But it’s virtually impossible to compare street violence in the United States to that in Ghana. Stateside, violent crime is more like an epidemic. But in Ghana, unless you live in an area where such activities are really pervasive, being mugged is rare. And even then, it’s not like the States where thugs are commonly emboldened to assault victims even in broad daylight.

LAW ENFORCEMENT

So when it comes to stealing, Ghanaian thieves are more inclined to engage in nonviolent robberies like break-ins, not muggings. Again, this is a bigger issue in some areas than others. It may be that the ‘hood is impoverished. Or a lot of drug activity (i.e. addiction) is going on, so thievery are pervasive.  Or maybe sometimes, a richer area can be targeted due to its wealth.

Ghana is more or less considered to be a poor country. But the reason thievery hasn’t gotten out of control, despite the poverty, is in part due to the persistence of vigilante justice. Not only is it practiced but also, to some degree, espoused. However it is not technically legal, as far as I know.

If caught in the act, even a non-violent Ghanaian thief faces the possibility of being lynched. And there’s no Al Sharpton, BLM or civil rights’ lawyers that’s going to come to his defense. I heard of one case where someone who broke into another’s home, was caught well after the fact but still lynched. There’s another tale of a thief who, in the name of eluding capture, jumped out of a fourth-floor window. He broke his leg in the process but was still burned alive by the locals.

And if you’re a violent thief, i.e. an “armed robber” who is caught by the police, may God be with you. Even if you’re not beat up or lynched, you could be facing a ridiculously-long prison sentence. No one likes a thief in Ghana, except other thieves, sometimes.

I’m not trying to paint a picture of Ghanaians as being merciless. The overwhelming majority of thieves, in fact, aren’t lynched. But the point being made is that the system here is vastly different from the U.S. There isn’t as much sympathy for criminals, and the idea of violently disciplining an offender is widely accepted. It’s not so much like the U.S., where someone can break into your home, and you may rather end up in jail due to the way you defend yourself.

NO ONE IN GHANA LIKES FACING THE POLICE

I would venture to say that’s in part because Ghana, unlike the States, is not a country where you can just call the police, and they’re at your doorstep within minutes. I’ve lived even in busy parts of Accra where you never see officers.  Moreover, many Ghanaian police stations don’t have vehicles at their disposal like that.

So if you have a serious issue, you may have to go and pick up police yourself, etc. So with many minor complaints, residents may opt not to get the police involved. Their involvement could ending up costing more than you lost to begin with.

I have yet to meet a Ghanaian who simply does not respect the law. I met this dude once who did a year in Nsawam, Ghana’s most notorious prison. He got locked up on some BS weed charge. Dude was reluctant to talk about the experience of being locked up. Meanwhile, I know ex-cons in the States who would reminisce on their incarceration with pride. Or they would make it sound like an enjoyable or productive experience, like a rite of passage.

In the U.S., you may meet people who are like “f*-k the police”. Some are even bold enough to say that to their faces. Or sometimes, you may have a friend who’s about to do something illegally reckless. You’re telling him to calm down before he gets arrested, and his response is ‘I don’t care’. I have yet to meet anyone in Ghana with those types of dispositions.

I had this one homey, a musician, who a few years back decided to wear a police uniform during a performance in Accra. He wasn’t impersonating an officer but just wearing their fatigues or fatigues of a similar color. Well unfortunately, later that night he ran into a group of actual police, who took offence to his get-up since he wasn’t actually an officer and proceeded to show their disdain by kicking his ass. Police brutality isn’t a hot topic in Ghana like it is in the States, but it does occasionally happen, with poor, defenseless people being the most vulnerable. In some respects, certain departments of the Ghana Police Force are more like street gangs than chieftaincies.

IF IN TROUBLE WITH THE LAW IN GHANA, BE READY TO PAY (MONETARILY)

But the widespread reluctance of facing law enforcement in Ghana is not primarily based on the threat of violence or even incarceration. Most people who are arrested don’t come anywhere close to being assaulted or actually going to prison. But even the local jail is someplace you wouldn’t want to be, at all. And more intimidating in the grand scheme of things is the fact that it’s virtually impossible to get out of trouble with the Ghana police unless you cough up some dough.

Now remember that this is a country in which most people – in some say, shape or form – are struggling financially. So the last thing you want to do is catch a case and have to pay the police some big dough to get your ass out of the fire.

Some people may consider such a scheme of things as being akin to bribery, but it’s better than having to do a bid on a bullsh*t charge. That aforementioned homey, the one who served a year for a weed offence, the reason he ended up in prison like that is because his family didn’t want to pay to expeditiously free him from the police’s clutches. And once you get sent up, to my understanding it isn’t likely that you’re going to come out before completing your sentence.

“CRIMINAL JUSTICE” IN THE UNITED STATES

Meanwhile in some parts of the States, you could commit a crime – even on camera – and face virtually no penalty. The history of policing, especially when it comes to Black people, is a lot different stateside.

In the States, they have what’s called a “criminal justice system”. I’ve been in U.S. criminal courts before. You would have a defense attorney arguing on behalf of even a violent criminal, often trying to get him off the hook completely. This is true even if everyone in the court knows he’s guilty and often to the distress of the actual victim. I get it. That’s how legal systems are more or less supposed to work in the modern world.  Innocent until proven guilty, due process and what have you. But good luck trying to secure “justice” as a serious criminal in Ghana.

There was recently this case where these two Ghanaian dudes and a girl in their early-20s robbed another guy of a similar age of his phone. In the process, they threatened him with a hammer or screwdriver or something. The three of them ended up being sentenced to 19 years collectively. I don’t even think they actually assaulted him.

Meanwhile, do something like that in NYC. You’re more likely to receive a slap on the wrist, if any actual punishment at all. In the eyes of U.S. law enforcement, muggings, unless someone is seriously hurt, are akin to petty crimes. There are murderers in the U.S. who’ve received leaner sentences than those three Ghanaian robbers. No one in their right mind wants to get in trouble with the law in Ghana. Contrastingly, many criminals in the States may consider the police and judicial system to be like jokes.

DRUGS

Drug abuse is definitely a bigger problem in the United States, partially due to the higher availability of such substances. It isn’t uncommon to know someone in the States who’s making a living by selling illegal drugs. In many areas, it may even be the primary economic activity of young males.

In Ghana drug abuse – not including alcoholism, which has already been rampant – is a growing problem. Crack and cocaine are now available in Ghana, in a way that any junkie near an urban center shouldn’t have much trouble finding them. But the bigger issue is opioids, i.e. the type of drugs you can get at a pharmacy, like tramadol.  Also, there are a surprising number of guys out here who enjoy sizzurp, i.e. cough syrup mixed with energy drinks.

When it comes to marijuana, some people may smoke it too much, both in the States and Ghana, but that’s not something I would personally classify as serious drug abuse. However in Ghana, you can find yourself in boiling hot water even for smoking ganja.

MARIJUANA INTOLERANCE IN GHANA

For instance, once again referencing the homey I mentioned earlier, he was in “a ghetto”, i.e. an outdoor area where weed is sold, when he was arrested. Sometimes police come to raid ghettoes, indiscriminately apprehending both smoker and seller alike. The objective, to my understanding, isn’t so much to clean up the streets. If a ghetto is shut down permanently, it isn’t likely to be because of the police. Rather, these raids more often serve as a quick way for them to take money from smokers.

So what happened is that an undercover cop was in the ghetto, smoking with the homey. They were actually sharing a spliff. So when the uniformed officers came and raided the ghetto, that selfsame cop, whom he was smoking with, grabbed him. Many Ghanaians are ignorant when it comes to marijuana, but there isn’t anything out here like an anti-weed hysteria. You don’t regularly see propaganda against marijuana. Yet concurrently for whatever reason, perhaps due to its ubiquity (and the fact that you can smell it), ganja has sort of a worse stigma than even cocaine.

There may not officially be a “war on Drugs” in Ghana as there is stateside, but that’s not to say that Ghanaians are more liberal when it comes to illegal substances. Weed is now being smoked openly on the streets of New York – a far cry from what it was like when I was growing up. But it’s hard to imagine when, if ever, a Ghanaian city would tolerate such a standard.

NOISE POLLUTION

I grew up with an older brother who used to play loud music just about any time he wanted. I was a kid at the time, and like most children noise didn’t really bother me. But since then, I’ve developed an acute intolerance for noise pollution.

If in the States you have a noisy neighbor – let’s say someone who’s throwing a late night house party without informing (or inviting) you first – you can call the people, though that course of action isn’t ideal. So it is in Ghana. There’s no law against going to your neighbor and asking him to turn the music down. But doing so is largely seen as bad etiquette or as a potential battle that you don’t want to get in.

I remember while residing in Long Island, New York, being made aware of a law that even if a person decides to preach on the roadside, they can’t use a speaker or megaphone in doing so. In other words, the volume of his has to suffice.

I later lived in Ashaiman, a part of Accra, near a busy intersection where this dude used to come out at 6:00am every morning and preach for hours, over an extremely loud speaker. At the time I was staying in a hotel and proceeded to complain to management. Their response was they had already gone to the authorities, more than once, to get dude removed but have not met any success. And yes, most residents and passersby didn’t really seem to be bothered at all.

NOISE POLLUTION LESS OF AN ISSUE STATESIDE

I was once reading this story about a garbageman in Georgia (USA) who was reprimanded because he started work early, before the scheduled time stipulated by the county. Just the noise of the garbage truck and him collecting the trash disturbed residents enough that they filed a complaint. And the authorities expeditiously rectified the situation.

Reading that story made me envious. There’s so many times I’ve lived in places in Ghana – close to neighbors, bars/nightclubs or churches/mosques – that have virtually zero respect for silence, regardless of what time of day it is.

Part of the problem is that in Ghana, the likes of bars and churches can literally popup anywhere. A person may decide to setup one of those types of businesses out of their own home. And on a personal level, if someone in the house next to you dies, gets married or what have you, you may be subjected to a long weekend of endlessly-loud music.

It isn’t so much the noise because obviously, many Ghanaians find value in it. The bigger issue is the inability to get away from it if so desired.  But that’s not to say that Americans can’t be noisy also. But in the U.S., there are more palpable safeguards against noise pollution. Contrastingly, in Ghana you may even end up having to file a lawsuit before authorities get seriously involved. This is despite there being laws against noise pollution already on the books.

CONCLUSION

In the U.S., the presence of law enforcement is felt everywhere. If you’re in need of police assistance, they’re usually at your door within a matter of minutes.  The Ghanaian system isn’t like that. Citizens aren’t encouraged to take the law into their own hands. But at the same time, foolishness in general is not widely tolerated. So people are less privy to get into trouble, whether the police are around or not.

Explore with Kojo looks forward to having you back for the next installment of “Living in Ghana vs. the United States”. In part three, we’ll focus on more pleasant social differences.  That includes those pertaining to family, romance and sports.

 

More in the Living in Ghana vs the United States Series

• Living in Ghana vs the United States: Daily Life Compared (Part 1)

• Living in Ghana vs America: Family, Romance, and Community (Part 3)

• Living in Ghana vs America: Economy, Religion, Race and Class (Part 4)