الرياضة كأحد أساليب المعاملة العقابية في القانون البحريني في ضوء قواعد نيلسون مانديلا الدولية

Abstract

Sport is one of the punitive methods of treatment enshrined in the Bahraini Correction and Rehabilitation Institution Law, promulgated by Law No. (18) on July 24, 2014. The Law stipulates the inmate’s right to practice free sport exercises during appropriate periods daily and in the open air. Besides, it obligates that administration of the institution to provide the infrastructure and the necessary centers to practice it. This study thus aims to highlight the importance of sports activity and the extent of its impact on the rehabilitation of inmates of penal institutions, and their reintegration into the social milieu. It also attempts to address the rules governing it in the Bahraini Correction and Rehabilitation Institution Law. The study also seeks to indicate the extent to which those rules are consistent with the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, recommended by the First United Nations Conference on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Criminals, held in Geneva in 1955, which became called the Nelson Mandela Rules, according to United Nations General Assembly Resolution 70/175 on December 17, 2015. One of the several essential findings of this study is that the rules established for sport as a rehabilitative method in the Correction and Rehabilitation Institution Law are exemplary in their entirety. Moreover, the rules are closely aligned with what Nelson Mandela Rules called for, and with the development of the penal policy witnessed in the treatment of prisoners.