Saudi Arabia announced steps this week to rein in its religious police, which is responsible for ensuring morality, piety and adherence with Islamic law but has become the target of mounting criticism in recent years.

The most significant change states that members of the religious police are to work only during office hours, and that they do not have the right to pursue, arrest or detain members of the public. They are, instead, directed to report violations of Islamic law to the civil police.

In addition, the government directed the religious police to be “gentle and kind” in its conduct, following the example of the Prophet Muhammad — a repudiation of the heavy-handed (and, critics say, occasionally hypocritical) approach that the religious police, most of them young men, have often taken.

Though the steps have made headlines, experts cautioned that their significance might be more symbolic than practical, coming as the kingdom faces weightier problems, like the ideological threat posed by the Islamic State, rising frustration among the young, and the disappearance of cushy jobs that oil revenues once made possible.