Courts in Jordan can replace a prison term with community service, a rehabilitation programme, addiction treatment or electronic monitoring, under a system the Ministry of Justice says is built around the circumstances of each convicted person rather than the offence alone.
اضافة اعلان
The framework sits in Article 25 bis of the Penal Code. It covers all misdemeanours, and felonies carrying up to three years of temporary hard labour or detention, provided the offender is not a repeat offender. A court can order an alternative at sentencing or afterwards, even once the judgment is final.
How a sentence is chosen
Every alternative rests on a social inquiry report prepared by a case officer attached to the court.The officer interviews the convicted person and records the nature of the offence, their education, occupation, and social and health circumstances.
The law allows that interview to be conducted remotely by electronic means.Consent matters. Community service, rehabilitation programmes and addiction treatment all require the convicted person to agree.
What the alternatives involve
Community service means unpaid work of public benefit, a minimum of 50 hours, capped at five hours a day.
Rehabilitation programmes cover awareness and counselling sessions, career guidance, life skills and digital skills, delivered by accredited bodies under memoranda of understanding with the ministry. Participants are assessed before and after. Delivery sites are spread across the governorates so people can attend near home.
Electronic monitoring places a person's movements under surveillance, and can be combined with bans on entering particular areas or with partial or full confinement to their home.A court may attach a travel ban to any alternative, or require a financial pledge not to contact specified individuals.
Duration, and what happens if it fails
An alternative cannot run for less than a third of the original prison term, nor longer than it. For misdemeanours the range is one month to two years; for felonies, three months to three years. The court must impose the custodial sentence first, then substitute it.
Failure to comply reinstates the prison term.Serving prisoners can also benefit. On a social inquiry report and a report of good conduct from the correctional centre, a court may convert up to the final year of a sentence, where the sentence imposed was between three and eight years.Alternatives do not cancel supplementary penalties, precautionary measures, fines or civil liabilities.
Where they do not apply
The law excludes felonies against state security, bank fraud, currency offences and breach of public office. Crimes against persons are excluded unless the personal right is waived or pardoned.
Also excluded are rape, indecent assault, kidnapping, torture under Article 208, offences under the Anti-Terrorism Law, felonies under the narcotics law, offences under the law protecting state secrets, felonies under the anti-money laundering law, and offences under the Military Penal Code and the national service law. The Directorate of Community Sanctions at the ministry supervises delivery by accredited bodies and monitors compliance.
Source: Al-Ghad. Reporting by Samah Bibars
