Officer Sammy Young has detailed how he became a corrections officer in America, after working as a professional chef for about three decades in Ghana.

“When you travel, the country you go to determines what work you have to do,” he said, explaining: “If you even want to be a doctor, America can make you a doctor – excuse me to say – no matter how daft you were while in Ghana.”

He recalled how, when he was in his home country, he had a phobia for guns “because I had a belief that the gun can mistakenly go off and kill me”.

He said, when he observed “White people can make you do things you’ve never dreamed of,” he let go of the fear, “made the move,” saying to himself: “I can do it”.

This, he caveated, did not mean he had no fears and worries during gun training. Quite the contrary.

“During the shooting training, that devilish thought still came to me. I worried about someone mistakenly shooting me. I worried about dying in America. I prayed for God to save me,” he recounted, noting he received training to handle pepper sprays, and teargas, among other things, necessary for what was to be his future work.

Here, he emphasised the importance of determination.

“If I had looked down on myself, and hadn’t gathered momentum – if I hadn’t been determined, I couldn’t have done it,” he said, stressing: “The country shows you what you have to do. Whatever will bring you money, you will do it.”

Officer Sammy Young said he had to hang his apron as chef and take up the corrections officer job “because Ghanaians were not patronising my food where I was – Dallas, Texas”.

“A Ghanaian will give you an order, go and buy the foodstuffs from the market, and demand to take away every single ingredient that remains after your cooking – even one ginger finger,” he bemoaned.

“So I decided to take up the corrections work because I had heard it paid well,” he explained.

He said catering is his side gig presently, “and even a lot of African communities ask me to cook for their events. A lot of people know I cook, in prison”.

In America, Officer Sammy Young said, his main focus is his corrections work. He usually uses his leave days, he added, to perform at music events.

A Gospel singer, he said, it was only right he focused much of his music ministry in Ghana where it all started for him.

The Manda Adwene Da (I Never Dreamed of This) singer spoke on Accra 100.5 FM’s Entertainment Capital.

He also told sit-in host Prince Benjamin (PB) about the differences between American and Ghanaian prisons.

According to Officer Sammy Young, when he first migrated to America, he did not understand why the change of name from prisons to corrections facilities “but later on, when they taught me why, I understood it”.

In that part of the world, he explained, “our aim is reintegrating the criminals back into society.

“To make this possible, we seek to correct [the offenders’] bad attitudes and other things. We correct them and then bring them back into society. We seek to remodel them and cause a change of mind so we can bring them back into the nation.”

He spoke about living conditions for prisoners in America, noting, apart from the basic limiting of an offender’s freedom of movement, “in my opinion,” the main punitive is the taking away of their privacy.

“In all honesty, compared to prisons in Ghana, just as we see on social media and others, American prisons are far better. Comparatively, American prisons are good. The prisoners have more privileges, there are so many advantages for them,” Officer Sammy Young said.

He mentioned some of the luxuries prisoners enjoy in America, including access to top-shelf health care and technology.

“A regular person may not be able to afford one but someone who’s killed about five people has access to a tablet in prison. They eat chicken – I mean, imagine what it’s going to be like as Christmas approaches – I mean, they feel at home. It’s just their privacy that they are deprived of, that’s my personal opinion. They all use the same restroom, and their rooms, per how it is designed, you can see what is going on in it just passing by. So it is just privacy that has been taken away.

Officer Sammy Young further noted: “They receive letters. And the hospital care they receive, even we the upright citizens or officers do not get that treatment. They have access to city scan machines – for just a few minutes in that machine, you’ll pay about 20,000 dollars. But someone who has taken another person’s life has access to that – I mean, they really care for them. It is handled by the government – and it is because of these inmates that we’re paid.”

He feared such humane handling of offenders may never materialise in Ghana, insinuating the greed of prison authorities.

“If such a thing is attempted in Ghana, one person will take everything meant for the inmates and take it to his house to use,” he bemoaned.

On why there is a stark difference between local and American prisons, per his experience in Texas, he put it down to “the laws in America work 24/7”.

“Since I went there, I have not seen the indiscriminate parking on the streets which is done all the time here. When the police grab you, you cannot beg or bride your way out. So people comply with the laws of the country. There are citizens who are not law-abiding but they know the law will deal with them when they are caught and that helps to control unlawful behaviour,” Officer Sammy Young continued.

Watch the official video for Ayeyi Ntoma (Cloth of Praise), the latest by singer-songwriter Officer Sammy Young, below: