The Application of Free Public Services’ Sentences in the Iranian Legal System and its Obstacles: A Qualitative Study

One of the most basic questions regarding the applicability of criminal institutions is, why do they fail when they are transferred to the Iranian legal-judicial tradition? Furthermore, since the judges are their primary beneficiaries, another query which arises is, why are judges reluctant to use such institutions? Questions such as these have not only been answered in relation to the penalties placed within free public services, but have also been independently and qualitatively answered by other criminological institutions.Using a qualitative method and by interviewing focus group made up of 12 judges, who issue free public service penalties, the present study seeks to discover what obstacles prevent judges from issuing such sentences.The findings of the present study indicate, judges, who believe in the corrective-therapeutic effect of free public service penalties, also acknowledge that the application of free public service penalties is hindered at all three legislative, judicial and executive levels. The limited range of crimes applicable within free public services, the lack of predicting efficient mechanisms for the cooperation of the judiciary and the executive branches, the ambiguity over whether to issue Article 3 of the (1984) Collections Act ... or not and other legal ambiguities and shortcomings are considered to be the most important obstacles in the legislative level. Furthermore, the following are regarded as obstacles of the enforcement of free public service penalties: the absence of statistics and evaluations of the performance of judges based on quantitative indicators; the presence of prisoner organizational culture towards judicial barriers; shortcomings in training judges in order to familiarize them with the various aspects of the new institutions, lack of public awareness and trust; and the accepting bodies.