Alternative Sentencing: From the Prison Crisis to the Positive Alternative

HIBAPRESS-RABAT

The prison crisis in Morocco is mainly due to the failure of the penal policy pursued for decades and oriented towards punitive justice, with a broader definition of behaviors perceived as delinquent or criminal, and on the other hand a socioeconomic and cultural context where socioeconomic inequalities, illiteracy, academic failure, the idleness of a youth left abandoned due to lack of employability, the lack of local sociocultural supervision which leaves the way open to deviance, and more authoritarian security policies interact.

Add to this the political, legislative, judicial, economic, financial and socio-cultural impact.

These shortcomings of the situation have pushed the Ministry of Justice, headed by Abdellatif Wahbi, to resort to alternative sentences, which will perhaps constitute an important milestone on the path to reforming penal policy.

However, these alternative sentences will certainly diminish the excessively repressive system to glimpse avenues of major reforms that could guarantee the desired alternative, among others, an alternative considered very positive to the alleviation of prison overcrowding.