A number of Shoura Council members criticized in their session Sunday the deplorable conditions of 104 prisons in Saudi Arabia that are housing 44,600 inmates. They picked a set of prison conditions apart including overcrowding, allowing mobile phones, which, they said, would help some inmates to run criminal activities from inside the prison. Their heated criticism came during a discussion of a proposal, introduced by Khaleel Al-Khaleel, chairman of the Council's Committee of Security Affairs, of providing moral support and incentives for inmates, said Al-Watan. While discussing the proposal, a number of Shoura members criticized the fact that 44,600 inmates are overcrowded in the Kingdom's 104 prisons. Dr. Bandar Al-Hajjar said the capacity of Jeddah's Briman prison is 3,700 inmates, yet it currently has 9,300 inmates. About 60 to 70 percent of prisoners in the Kingdom are non-Saudis; that is about 32,000 inmates, he added. Al-Hajjar called for accelerating prison procedures including the issuance of criminal records of prisoners. He pinpointed bad conditions of prisons, lashing out at judiciary representatives for not visiting prisoners. Some inmates can be detained for a whole year in prison without a trial, he said. On his part, Dr. Hatim Al-Sharif, called for establishing industrial cities in which inmates can work. Dr. Ahmad Aal Mefrih emphasized on starting up vocational training workshops at juvenile correctional facilities, saying that there is an apparent discrepancy in court rulings involving similar juvenile cases. Dr. Abdul Aziz Al-Thonaiyan proposed educational programs to be added to jails' programs such as the memorization of the Holy Qur'an. “We aim to shorten the jail time for inmates who complete their education inside prison,” he said. He also criticized inmates overcrowding saying that prisoners take turns on beds in some jails so they could sleep. Dr. Abdullah Al-Dossari recommended establishing more correctional facilities to accommodate more inmates and avoid overcrowding. Dr. Sa'eed Al-Hajri mentioned an example of a prison with a capacity of only 1000 inmates housing now 2000 inmates. At the end of the discussion, the Security Affairs Committee asked for time to respond to the members' remarks in a coming session. __
