While on patrol, the duties of the mutaween include, but are not restricted to:

ensuring that drugs and alcohol are not being traded.
checking that women wear the abaya, a traditional all-enveloping black cloak.
making sure that men and women who are spotted together in public are related.
ensuring women do not smoke in public.
formerly, enforcing the ban on camera phones. This ban was enacted out of a fear that men would use them to secretly photograph women and publish them on the Internet without the consent of the subjects. The ban was enacted in April 2004 but was overturned in December that same year.[6]
preventing the population from engaging in "frivolous" Western customs such as Valentine's Day.

The punishment for such offenses is severe, often involving beatings and humiliation, and foreigners are not excluded from arrest. The mutaween encourage people to inform on others they know who are suspected of acting unvirtuously, and to punish such activities.