Bahrain implements alternative penalties to reinforce human rights, community stability

Bahrain implements alternative penalties to reinforce human rights, community stability
February 1, 2022, 12:32 pm

Dr Deborah Swallow DBA is an international consultant and a senior lecturer in diplomacy and international human resource management. She is an expert on intercultural communication, diversity and human rights and is published author in the field of intercultural communication and diversity. She lectures at Glasgow Caledonian University London

Bahrain is among the first countries to implement the alternative penalties, as the law is a pioneering experience in the region to reinforce human rights and positively strengthen family ties to enhance community stability.

The new prison reform says all prisoners are eligible for “alternative sentencing” even prior to starting to serve their sentences.

Dr Deborah Swallow, who is an international consultant and a senior lecturer in diplomacy and international human resource management at Glasgow Caledonian University London, told Bahrain International TV channel that the phliosophy to go from punishment to rehabilitation in the prison regimes is a completelty different phillosophy.

The open prison initiative is "much more beneficial to the society", as it lowers reoffending rates, according to Dr Swallow.

It is more useful "to go through the idea of rehabilitation with alternative sentencing programmes than to put locked people away and treat it as a punishment," she assured.

Asked on the role of implementing the programm to reinforcing human rights, Dr Swallow called on every country to "start from where they are now," adding that, "any move that even the very first step is a positive step".

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It is true that the the UK and the west countries have democracy and prison reform, she mentioned, but, they learned and developed from their revolutions and civil wars.

Alternative sentences may include community service, home detention, exclusion orders, non-contact orders, electronic tagging, rehabilitation programmes or compensation.

The reforms will see more offenders serving their sentences in the community and a review of existing prisoners for transfer to alternative sentencing and early release. Alternative sentences will be considered by the Courts on application by the prosecution and upon being satisfied that the offender does not pose a risk to the public.

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President of the second High Criminal Court of Appeal, Judge Ibrahim Salman Al Jafn, previously asserted that the kingdom was the first among its neighbouring countries to issue and implement such a law aimed at enabling the family and civil society to play a major role in reforming convicts with sentences entailing deprivation of liberty, as well as changing traditional penalties that are not commensurate with some cases.

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