One good thing, however, arose from the escape of security prisoners: a public debate finally arose on the question of where about four billion shekels go from our taxes each year, while the conditions of incarceration remain poor and deplorable.
Every year, the Public Defender's Report reviews the shameful conditions of incarceration, and the public is indifferent.
A combination of incarceration, out of the illusion that increasing the number of prisoners would reduce crime, with a lack of allocation of resources to build appropriate facilities, has led in recent decades to an increase in the number of prisoners and overcrowding. In 2014, a report was published by the American National Institute of Science, which showed that imprisonment did not achieve its goals, and recommended reducing its use. In Israel, too, most prisoners are not murderers, rapists, robbers, violent or physically dangerous; many are imprisoned for non-violent property offenses. In 2015, the Dorner Commission report was published, which recommended reducing incarceration.
In 2017, the High Court received a petition from human rights organizations, ordering an increase in the average living space per prisoner from about 3 square meters to 4.5 square meters. In international conventions, the minimum is 6 square meters, and the European average is 9 square meters. Overcrowding causes suffering and suffocation, impairs hygiene and privacy, and intensifies tensions. Several thousand prisoners were later released, and their number was reduced to about 14,000. But the prisons are still very crowded, and according to the defense Mildew, dirt, pests, bed bugs, cockroaches and rats in cells. In some facilities there is still no separation between the "kneeling services" and the shower above them, and the prisoners are forced to shower where others have defecated. In addition, there is no separation between the toilet-shower cubicle and the living space, and there is no privacy. The Supreme Court judge wrote that none of us would have lasted two days in such conditions.
In the past they have tended to blame the Treasury, which does not budget for the construction of proper detention facilities. It turns out that in the last decade, despite the decrease in the number of prisoners, the IPS budget has doubled to about four billion shekels. Where does our tax money go? About 80% of the IPS budget is occupied by prisoners 'salaries (62%) and former prisoners' pensions (17%). 19% is devoted to procurement, and only 2% remains for development. About 9,000 wardens compared to about 14,000 prisoners - for every three prisoners there are two wardens, of whom a huge proportion are about two thousand officers (22%), whose salaries are high.
This month, an agreement was signed between the Ministry of Finance, the IPS and the police, aimed at drastically reducing wage costs, reducing the number of wardens and police officers, especially officers, and directing resources to investments in facilities and technological advancement. Preserve.