151ST INTERNATIONAL TRAINING COURSEPARTICIPANTS’PAPERS
PARTICIPANTS’ PAPERSOVERVIEW OF THE CORRECTIONALDEPARTMENT IN MOROCCO
Abderahim Rahouti*

We actually know very little about prison history in Morocco because of a shortage of literature in thisarea. The available texts refer to the Protectorate in the beginning of the 20th Century as the period which
witnessed the institutionalization of the prison system in terms of rules and procedures, human resources,
construction, funding and offenders’ treatment in particular. Such initiative reforms were stressed by manyActs, mainly those in 1915, 1924 and 1930 which led to the creation of a central office to ensure adequate
oversight and supervision. This period saw the improvement of offenders’ accommodation, health care, andfood service. However, there was no trace of offenders’ rehabilitation and preparation for their reintegration
into society. In addition, there was much discrimination between Moroccan and European inmates in manyways.
When Morocco received its Independence, a Royal Act (dahir cherif ) was passed on 16 October 1956,
which brought corrections under the authority of the ministry of justice instead of the department of public
security. Since then, the prison system has experienced many highlights and challenges. Thus, new reforms
took place in 1974 and 1976 after the passing of two main Acts which managed to implement laws stressing
the promotion of staff welfare and offender rehabilitation.
The most important reform carried out at the level of the prison system was thanks to the passing of thePrison Act 23-98 in 1999. This modern Act emphasized offenders’ rehabilitation and reinsertion programs inaccordance with human rights issues and the International Standards related to offender treatment.
Another turning point in modern history of Moroccan corrections was the Royal Act of April 2008 bymeans of which the prison system stopped being an integral directorate of the ministry of justice and wasbrought under the authority of the chief of the government. Thanks to this Act, the department of correction
gained its autonomy in terms of human resources management, legislation, budget management, etc. In
addition, the head of the department of corrections, the Delegue General , has assumed since then overall
responsibility for the prison system which consists today of 80 institutions: a central office (headquarters),
9 regional offices, 2 training academies (one of them will open by the end of 2012), and 68 prisons as will beexplained later in this paper.
The central office is located in Rabat (the capital) and consists of four directorates: the directorateof rehabilitation and offenders’ reintegration, the directorate of security and safety of the public andcorrectional construction, the directorate of human resources management, the directorate of budget andequipment. These directorates in terms of organizational structure consist of 13 divisions and 35 services.
For the sake of decentralization and good governance, nine regional offices were created in 2010 toprovide close supervision and to ensure adequate application of policies and procedures. Each regional officeconsists of four services:•••

Service of offenders’ rehabilitation and social programs
Service of the security of corrections
Service of human resources management* Director of the Training Academy, Division of Recruitment, Training and Improvement of Competences, D.G.A.P.R. Ifrane,Morocco.

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Services of general instruments: budget, logistics, etc.

As regards corrections, the Moroccan system consists of four main categories of prisons with almost
no distinctions in terms of security levels, and all of them providing offenders with various rehabilitative
programs. The current prison disposition is as follows:••••

2 central prisons: accommodate only convicted male offenders serving long sentences, life sentences
and some difficult offenders.
55 local prisons: accommodate unconvicted male and female inmates and those serving short sentences.
3 juvenile correctional institutions which accommodate youthful male offenders under the age of 20years.
8 agricultural prisons established within different regions of the kingdom. These prisons accommodate
convicted male offenders who are close to being released and provide them with vocational training in
the field of farming as a preparation for their reintegration.

Today, the Moroccan population is estimated at 30 million people, while the prison population has
oscillated during recent years between 57,000 and 67,000 inmates. The following statistics are intended togive an idea about the characteristics of this prison population.

Marital Status

Gender3%0.50%

Single32%

FemalesDivorced

Males

63%
97%

MarriedWidows3.50%

Penal Situation

Profession
1.57%
Jobless

13%
27.50%

Farmworkers

10%

Craftsmen
Students
RetiredConvicted
Unconvicted

Private activities

29%

0.50%

38.90%
61.10%

State employees

2%

Sentence Length

Age
6.06% 6.64%

11%
9%

Less than 2 years

Under 20 years

Between 2 and 5 years

22%

58%

More than 10 years

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Between 21 and 50 years

Between 5 and 10 years

Over 51 years

87.30%

151ST INTERNATIONAL TRAINING COURSEPARTICIPANTS’ PAPERS

Offences
0.93%

1.57%Theft and Robbery
Drugs Offenses

12.35%

23.05%

6.30%

Homicide and Related
Gave Offenses
Sexual Offenses
Public Order Offenses

18.21%
37.59%

Terorism Offenses
OthersEach institution of the department of corrections is vital to the overall team, and all the institutions work
together for the same mission which is based on the whole correctional philosophy and criminal policy of thecountry as follows:•••

Make prisons safer, more secure and more humane.
Ensure inmates’ rehabilitation for less reoffending.
Enhance professionalism and efficiency in prison management.

In fulfilling this mission, there have been many of problems and difficulties to overcome by the correctional
department namely:••••••••

Overcrowding.
Inadequacy in staff and funding.
Staff corruption and inefficiency.
Insufficient staff training.
Relatively poor staff welfare and conditions of service.
Inadequacy in infrastructure, instruments and logistics.
Inadequate maintenance of tools, infrastructure, etc.
Lack of adequate information management systems to guarantee smooth networking with establishedgovernment databanks.

So as to overcome such difficulties and carry out correctional missions properly, the department of corrections
has adopted different measures and strategies such as:••••••••••

Hiring 1,000 employees every year.
Implementing new rules and procedures related to security, public safety and offenders’ rehabilitation.
Building more prisons with appropriate and compatible characteristics.
Closing old prisons which are considered real barriers to prison reforms.
Building one more training academy.
Enhancing staff welfare for increased efficiency by promoting salaries and compensation.
Creating job-specific and management compensation.
Optimizing utilization of the limited correctional resources.
Taking severe disciplinary measures in case of staff law breaking, corruption, misconduct andoffender mistreatment.
Emphasizing offenders’ rehabilitation programmes.

As matter of fact, many correctional reform initiatives have been achieved in the past four years; this wasbasically due to the King’s strong will and continuous commitment which have placed more emphasis on
human rights and offender rehabilitation as a priority in governmental policies and national strategic projects
for development. However, there are still more efforts and reforms to be carried out so as to achievesatisfactory results and to make corrections a department which enhances the community’s safety, welfareand pride both at the national and international levels.

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