Alternatives to incarceration best solution to avoid recidivism and overcrowding – international seminar in Marrakesh
The national Human Rights Council held on Feb. 4-5, 2014, in Marrakech, an international seminar to discuss modern penal policies and their impacts on reform in the Arab World. The seminar shed light as well on alternatives to incarceration and post sentence-terms programs.
This seminar was held in partnership with Penal Reform International and Mohammed VI Foundation for prisoners’ re-integration.
The participants stressed that Arab countries have made good efforts to include reintegration and alternatives to incarceration in their penal policies. But these efforts are still limited and fall short of the international relevant penal and reform developments, they said. Security is the most dominant and common aspect of these efforts. Besides, they give no great account to the human rights-based approach, not to mention the measures taken to “humanize” incarceration and re-integrate prisoners back into society, which are limited and insufficient.
No wonder recidivism and overcrowding rates are scoring high in most prisons in the Arab World. Alternatives to incarceration, the participants stressed, should be widely promoted to be accepted in society and by prisoners themselves.