The post-trial stage falls within the sphere of criminal procedure since it is the stage of enforcement of the penalty at which the convicted person is no longer regarded as an accused person enjoying a number of safeguards based on the presumption of his innocence, which no longer apply after his conviction. However, this change in legal status does not mean that the person concerned is henceforth deprived of rights and safeguards. In fact, the extensive development of the penal system in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, being based on clearly-defined scientific criteria and governed by statutory rules derived from the Islamic Shariah, ensures that the human rights of convicted persons are safeguarded and respected. This is achieved through a separate set of regulations governing the enforcement of penalties, namely the Prison and Detention Regulations with-the Explanatory Notes thereto promulgated in Decree No. M/31 of 21/6/1398 H, corresponding to AD May 28, 1978, their Implementing Directives and the special rules concerning certain categories of male juvenile delinquents under 18 years of age and female delinquents under 30 years of age. These rules and regulations clearly show that the social rehabilitation of convicted persons in the Kingdom is a basic right from which all the convicted persons' other rights are derived. In order to guarantee this right, all penal institutions and bodies responsible for the enforcement of criminal penalties are, by law, placed under the control and supervision of the judiciary.
(1) Bodies responsible for the enforcement of penalties:
A) Ministry of the Interior (Directorate-General of Prisons)
- Prisons for men (over 18 years of age)
- Prisons for women (over 30 years of age)
B) Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs
- Social Surveillance Centers (for males under 18 years of age)
- Welfare Institutions (for young women under 30 years of age)
The criminal penalties and reform and custodial measures provided for in final legal judgements are implemented by three different bodies depending on the age and person sentenced thereto. These are:
(a) The Directorate-General of Prisons.
(b) The social surveillance centers.
(c) The welfare institutions for young women.
(a) The Directorate-General of Prisons
The Directorate-General of Prisons, which is the body responsible for the enforcement of criminal penalties, is an implementing agency since its function is confined to the execution of orders for the enforcement of penalties provided for in legal judgements that stipulate the nature and the manner of execution of the penalties.
Although this Directorate-General forms part of the Ministry of the Interior (i.e. the executive authority), it is subject to the latter's control only in administrative and financial matters. In matters concerning the enforcement of criminal penalties, it is subject to the supervision of the judiciary and the Public Investigation and Prosecution Department. This is emphasized in the provisions of the Prison and Detention Regulations, the Explanatory Notes thereto and their Implementing Directives and also in the Statutes of the Public Investigation and Prosecution Department.
In the Kingdom, the role of prisons is not confined solely to the custody of convicted persons. In actual fact, they are model institutions that meet all the requisite criteria for the implementation of reform and rehabilitation programs based on religious instruction, social reorientation, education, cultivation of the mind, training and work. The Kingdom's regulations ensure that convicted persons are treated in a proper dignified manner. Article 28 of the Prison and Detention Regulations prohibit any form of aggression against prisoners or detainees and stipulate that disciplinary measures must be taken against civilian or military officials who commit any act of aggression against prisoners or detainees, without prejudice to any penalties to which they might be liable in cases in which such aggression constitutes a criminal offence.
The Regulations stipulate that the qualities required of prison staff include sincerity, honesty, integrity, fairness, strength of character and irreproachable conduct, since these qualities are needed in order to enable such staff to play their role in an effective manner.
The Kingdom's Directorate-General of Prisons also operates women's prisons, which are managed by a separate administration that reports to the Director of Prisons in each region. These prisons are staffed by female specialists in various fields, such as education, training, rehabilitation, surveillance, administration, medical services and social welfare.
(b) Social surveillance centers
It is an acknowledged fact that young convicted offenders enjoy special care under the Kingdom's regulations, as illustrated by the Statutes of the Social Surveillance Centers promulgated in Ordinance No. 611 issued by the Council of Ministers on 13/5/1395 H, corresponding to AD May 24, 1975, and their Implementing Directives promulgated in Ministerial Ordinance No. 1354 of 3/8/1395 H, corresponding to AD August 10, 1975. Article 1 of the Statutes stipulates that the aim of the social surveillance centers is to cater for the welfare of juveniles over 7 but under 18 years of age.
Juveniles enjoy special treatment in these centers supervised by the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs since they are institutions of a social nature characterized primarily by care, compassion, rehabilitation and reform.
These centers are responsible for enforcement of the judgements and decisions handed down against juveniles in accordance with the provisions of article 7 of the Implementing Directives. Article 10 (b) of the Statutes of the Social Surveillance Centers stipulates that juveniles must be tried and punished within the surveillance centers through agreement between the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs and the competent authorities.
During the period of their residence in a social surveillance center, juveniles enjoy full care, sympathy, kindness and concern for their circumstances since the social worker studies the situation of each juvenile and prepares an appropriate reform plan for him. The Implementing Directives specify the manner in which juveniles should be cared for, as well as the principal stages of the reform plan, which should be supported by a number of programs and activities to ensure its success. Far from ending on the termination of their period of residence in the center, the care of juveniles continues after their departure therefrom through follow-up welfare programs that are implemented by specialized departments under the supervision of the Directorate-General for Follow-up and After-care at the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs.
(c) Welfare institutions for young women
In view of the special nature and constitution-of young women, the regulations make appropriate provision for the rectification of their conduct when they fall victim to social or psychological circumstances that lead them into delinquency. The most notable of these regulations are the Statutes of the Welfare Institutions for Young Women, promulgated in Ordinance No. 868 issued by the Council of Ministers on 19/7/1395 H, corresponding to AD July 28, 1975, and their Implementing Directives promulgated in Ministerial Ordinance No. 2083 of 22/11/1396 H, corresponding to AD November 14, 1976, which emphasized the need to establish appropriate places for the accommodation and care of young female delinquents. These welfare institutions, which are operated by the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, are of an educative and social nature and are intended to cater for the welfare of young women under 30 years of age in respect of whom remand or detention orders have been issued.
Care is taken to ensure that young women under 15 years of age are accommodated in a separate section of the institution and that young women who are remanded in custody are segregated from young female convicts (arts. 2 and 5 of the Statutes of the Welfare Institutions for Young Women).
The penalties to which the young women have been sentenced are enforced within these institutions, where they benefit from comprehensive social and psychological care programs implemented by female sociologists with a: view to their proper social rehabilitation through inclusion in the category to which they belong within the institution and participation in programs and activities designed to discover their propensities, inclinations and modes of conduct so that the requisite reform plans can be prepared for them. The female inmates of these institutions also benefit from a number of educational. cultural, religious, vocational and technical training and health-care programs and, after their departure, the institution provides after-care services in order to complete their social rehabilitation.
The systems for the enforcement of criminal penalties are based on an important principle, namely the need for the social rehabilitation of convicted persons, which is one of their basic rights since a criminal who has suffered from social circumstances that led him into crime has a right to be freed, by the State, from those circumstances and to be reintegrated one day in society as an upright citizen. In the Kingdom, we find that the State is diligently protecting and respecting this right by allocating considerable funds for expenditure on prisons and doing its utmost to facilitate the rehabilitation of their inmates through education and reform, as provided for in the legislation that it promulgates, and through the promotion of cooperation between the prison staff and the convicts in order to achieve the aims of the enforcement of penalties. In addition to the role that it is playing in the rehabilitation process, the Kingdom's Government is encouraging public opinion, through the information and other media, to accept these convicted persons after their release, to refrain from placing obstacles in their way and to help them on their new path towards an honorable life.
In keeping with this principle, we find that the Prison and Detention Regulations and their Implementing Directives transcend the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, which were adopted by the First United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, held in August 1955 and approved by the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations in its resolution 633 C (XXIV) of July 31, 1957. The Regulations also made provision for the establishment of a Higher Prison Board to conduct studies on the development of prisons, so that they can achieve their purpose of reforming convicts more effectively by availing themselves of the services of rehabilitation specialists, and to call upon the competent bodies to study and improve prison conditions. The Kingdom has diligently endeavored to ensure that its regulations and directives concerning rehabilitation further the noble purpose of the criminal penalties that are imposed on convicted persons by introducing numerous systems that greatly help to expedite rehabilitation. The most notable of these systems are:
Examination and classification
In its endeavors to promote rehabilitation, the Kingdom regards the examination and classification system as the best way to ensure that convicted persons are placed in the penal institution and system most suited to their circumstances and the requirements for their reform.
Classification helps in the formulation of a reform program for the convicted person in the light of the constituent elements and special particularities of his personality.
(a) Examination in the Kingdom's penal system
Examination consists in a study of the various aspects of the convict's personality in order to obtain a set of data that will facilitate the proper enforcement of the penalty or measure to which he has been sentenced.
The concern that the Kingdom's penal system shows for examination is illustrated by the fact that the Directives Concerning the Duties and Functions of the Directorate-General of Prisons, which were promulgated in Ministerial Ordinance No. 4090 of 22/10/1398 H, corresponding to AD September 24, 1978, pursuant to article 3 of the Prison and Detention Regulations, stipulate that the Social and Psychological Care Unit of the Department of Inmates' Affairs should propose social care programs for inmates, analyze their results and trends and propose appropriate means of reform for each case.
Article 1 (b) of the Implementing Directives of the Social Surveillance Centers stipulates that these centers should study the causes of the problems of juveniles and propose appropriate solutions thereto, in the light of their practical experience of those problems, in coordination with the other bodies concerned. Article 12 of the same Directives stipulates that the duties of the social specialist include observing the juvenile's response to the center's programs and activities, seeking the observations of the technical and supervisory personnel working at the center, and recording all these observations in the juvenile's personal file in order to use them to assess the juvenile and help him to adapt and to overcome the problems and difficulties that he is facing. The functions of the social specialist also include compilation of the requisite social study in accordance with the model prepared for that purpose, taking care to use the information contained in the case file and proposing appropriate measures to deal with each juvenile. A special file, containing all the documents, information and reform endeavors made, is opened for each juvenile and kept confidential.
Article 6 of the Statutes of the Welfare Institutions for Young Women stipulates that the social specialists at the institution must prepare an integrated study of the case of each young woman who is sent for trial and the study must be submitted, together with the case file, to the competent judge so that he can use the information contained therein during his hearing of the case.
In accordance with article 2(e) of the Implementing Directives of the Welfare Institutions for Young Women, the young women are entered in a special register containing all the details, which must be kept highly confidential, of the institution's inmates. Article 7 of the same Directives stipulates that, when a young woman is brought to trial, the competent judge must be provided with a detailed social report on her situation, her social, economic and environmental circumstances, the factors most likely to have led to her delinquency, and the reform plan and measures proposed for her rehabilitation, so that it can be used during the hearing of the case.
(b) Classification
Classification means distribution of the convicted persons among the various penal institutions, in which they are subsequently divided into categories in the light of the differing reform methods required by the circumstances of each category. The penal system in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia conducts this classification on the basis of the following principal criteria:
(i) Gender
Males and females are segregated in the Kingdom's penal institutions. Article 2 of the Prison and Detention Regulations provides for the establishment of separate prisons for men and women. The women's prisons in each region have a female administration that reports to the Director of Prisons in the region and observes the special regulations applicable to women's prisons in which the inmates receive special treatment consistent with their female nature and circumstances.
(ii) Age
Prisoners are classified, by age, as male juveniles, young women or adults. This question has formed the subject of special official concern in the Kingdom in view of its close linkage with the cultural foundations of society. Numerous directives have been issued to the effect that male juveniles under 18 years of age must not be confined in public prisons but, instead, must be placed in the surveillance centers established for all nationalities. The necessary regulations governing this matter were incorporated in the Statutes of the Social Surveillance Centers, promulgated in Council of Ministers Ordinance No. 611 of 13/51395 H, corresponding to AD May 24, 1975, and their subsequent Implementing Directives promulgated in Ministerial Ordinance No. 1354 of 3/8/1395 H, corresponding to AD August 10, 1975. Young women under 30 years of age are referred to the welfare institutions for young women in accordance with the Statutes of those institutions, promulgated in Council of Ministers Ordinance No. 868 of 19/7/1395 H, corresponding to AD July 28, 1975, and their Implementing Directives promulgated in Ordinance No. 2083 of 22/11/1396 H, corresponding to AD November 14, 1976.
The Kingdom's authorities have not disregarded the importance of classification in public prisons. Paragraph 9 of the Directive Concerning the Classification and Accommodation of Prisoners, promulgated in Ministerial Ordinance No: 44 of 3/1/1399 H, corresponding to AD December 3, 1978, on the basis of article 10 of the Prison and Detention Regulations, stipulates that, as a general principle, convicted prisoners should be segregated from persons remanded in custody and persons held in the same cell should belong to similar age groups.
(iii) Type of offence
Prisoners are also classified in accordance with the type of the offence that they committed. Paragraph 7 of the Directive C6ncerning the Classification and Accommodation of Prisoners stipulates that: "When accommodating categories of prisoners in the cells, care should always be taken to ensure that persons convicted of similar offences are kept together. Accordingly, persons convicted of physical assault, financial offences, trivial offences and drug-related offences should be accommodated separately."
(iv) Type and duration of penalty and criminal record of the convicted person
The Kingdom's penal system shows due regard for the criteria of type and duration of penalties. Paragraph 3 of the Directive Concerning the Classification and Accommodation of Prisoners stipulates that care must be taken to classify convicted prisoners and assign each group to neighboring cells, wherever possible, in accordance with the following categories:
(a) Persons sentenced to minor terms of imprisonment not exceeding one year, those with criminal records being segregated from those without a criminal record.
(b) Persons without a criminal record who are sentenced to terms of imprisonment not exceeding two years.
(c) Persons without a criminal record who are sentenced to terms of imprisonment exceeding two years.
(d) Convicted persons with criminal records, regardless of the duration of their penalty.
(e) Convicts whose past records are unknown, until such time as their past history can be established and they can be placed in the appropriate category.
(f) Persons sentenced to capital punishment.
Paragraph 7 of the same Directive further stipulates that prisoners sentenced to long terms must be segregated from all categories serving short terms of imprisonment. Accordingly, persons serving similar terms of imprisonment are held in the same cell and the same applies to prisoners with criminal records, those with similar records being accommodated together.
(v) State of health
This criterion necessitates the classification of prisoners in two categories: the healthy and the sick. The latter category comprises persons suffering from physical, mental or psychiatric disorders but also includes physically weak persons and pregnant women. The Kingdom's penal system has adopted this criterion in accordance with paragraph 2 of the Directive Concerning the Classification and Accommodation of Prisoners, which stipulates that some neighboring cells in the prisons must be set aside for the accommodation of prisoners during the period that they are obliged to spend under medical observation. In accordance with paragraphs 26 and 27 of the Prison Medical Services Directive promulgated in Ministerial Ordinance No. 4092 of 22/10/1398 H, corresponding to AD September 24, 1978, on the basis of article 22 of the Prison and Detention Regulations, cells in which infections with contagious diseases have occurred must be disinfected and their inmates, as well as persons who have been in contact with them or who have arrived from an infected area, must be placed in quarantine for the medically specified period. Inmates afflicted with contagious diseases must also be isolated from other inmates and distinctive marks must be placed on all the utensils and bedding allocated to them. Under the terms of paragraph 28 of the same Directive, any convicted person who is afflicted with a mental disorder must be transferred to a hospital for mental illnesses. Article 13 of the Prison and Detention Regulations further stipulates that pregnant prisoners must be accorded special treatment in regard to food and work, as necessitated by their medical condition, from the appearance of the first signs of pregnancy until 40 days after their delivery.
(vi) Social and cultural circumstances
The Kingdom's penal system shows due regard for social and cultural circumstances when classifying convicted persons. Paragraph 11 of the Directive Concerning the Classification and Accommodation of Prisoners stipulates that the social and cultural circumstances of prisoners must be duly taken into account by placing homogeneous groups together in the same cell.
Like other modem legislative systems, the Kingdom's legal system does not rely solely on deprivation of liberty as a criminal penalty. In fact, it has adopted the following additional methods of dealing with offenders outside penal institutions:
(a) Suspended sentences
Suspended sentences, which help to promote the convicted persons' desire for rehabilitation, are a method to which the Kingdom's judiciary resorts in a specific type of offences out of regard for the convicted persons' circumstances or when it believes that this would be conducive to their reform.
(b) Pardon
The legal system in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has adopted the concept of pardon after sentencing, either before or during the enforcement of the penalty, subject to specific rules and regulations.
(c) Release on probation
The Kingdom has adopted the system of release on probation as a method of rehabilitation that encourages the convicted person to observe a proper course of conduct and behavior and follow the prison's rehabilitation programs and, on his departure from the prison, provides him with an opportunity to continue his rehabilitation and social adaptation. Article 25 of the Prison and Detention Regulations makes provision for release on probation, the modalities, conditions and rules of which are set forth in the Directives.
(d) Release on health grounds
For humanitarian reasons, the Kingdom has adopted the system of release on health grounds. Article 22 of the Prison and Detention Regulations refers to the release on health grounds of persons afflicted with life-threatening or totally incapacitating diseases and stipulates that the person released must undergo periodic medical examinations and must be returned to the prison when his state of health so permits. The Directive Concerning Release on Health Grounds sets forth the rules governing such release which stipulate, inter alia, that the convicted person must remain under police surveillance and that his period of treatment outside the prison must be deducted from the period of his sentence if there is hope that he might be cured. If his condition is incurable and this is confirmed by a medical board, his release is definitive, regardless of the duration of the penalty to which he- was sentenced.
(e) Semi-liberty
Semi-liberty means that a person sentenced to a custodial penalty is assigned to work outside the prison, which he is permitted to leave every day in the morning but to which he must return in the evening. This new but important method of serving sentences involving restriction of liberty, which ensures work for the convicted person and keeps him in contact with society, is currently being applied in the Kingdom on a trial basis subject to a number of rules and conditions and will be submitted to the regulatory authority for adoption or abandonment in the light of its practical results.
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