Opinion | Homeless, in front of the enforcement presses Israel today

In 2016, Shimon was convicted of an indecent act and sentenced to two years in prison.

Speaking of a kiss to a friend-friend without her consent.

Simon says he thought the kiss was desirable but even if he suspected there was no consent, the punishment was unusual in severity.

In addition, he was issued a restraining order against sex offenders, based on an outdated offense.

The supervision requires contact with a supervision officer, and things got complicated, mainly because Shimon is homeless.

Surveillance officers work near their residences, and Shimon is forced to roam between street benches in various cities.

Time and again, contact with the rotating supervisors was interrupted.

In the verdict now given, following an indictment attributing to Shimon a breach of supervision conditions and related offenses, the judge wrote about "the vicious circle of severing contact - filing a complaint - the defendant's arrest for the violation, and God forbid."

This is how Shimon was arrested in recent years for periods that add up to nine months.

Being poor and in the face of the possibility of imprisonment, Shimon is entitled to representation on behalf of the Public Defender's Office.

But his relationship with its people ran aground.

He asked for a publicly funded defense attorney, and his request was denied.

In the verdict, the judge attributes to Shimon, who was forced to represent himself, a waste of judicial time.

Simon explained that on some of the occasions on which he was accused of not keeping in touch he did not have a telephone, sometimes because he was confiscated when he was arrested.

The judge ruled that he could have called from a pay phone, but nowadays there are not many.

Simon testified that the supervisory officers did not allow him to lead a normal lifestyle and "came down to his life."

For example, when he collected alms at the celebration of Baba Sally in Netivot, an unfamiliar supervision officer approached him, disguised as an ultra-Orthodox, and demanded that he leave and report to Rishon LeZion the next day. He himself explained that there is no prohibition on being in public places. In addition, the beggars' donors are adults, and Shimon should eat. The judge rejected his claims, ruled that he violated supervision conditions and convicted.

What is the appropriate punishment?

The prosecution presented similar or more serious cases, in which the sentences imposed ranged from a sentence without imprisonment to several months 'imprisonment, and nevertheless sought to aggravate and sentence Shimon to 18 months' imprisonment.

Judge Amit Michals accepted her request in full.

The punishment is disproportionate to the offenses.

It is especially difficult for someone who has been crowned a sex offender and is expected to be abused in prison, and the imprisonment will cost the public about NIS 400,000, in addition to the cost of legal proceedings.

Until this indictment became clear, the same prosecutor, Advocate Natya Pitchhaza from the Central District Attorney's Office, hurried to file a similar indictment against Shimon, with other dates when he was not in contact with the inspectors, with a request for his detention until the end of the proceedings. The cases are as usual, so that an additional prison sentence may be imposed.

Maybe the expensive inspection is unnecessary?

After all, this is not, God forbid, rape.

The judge relies on an outdated approach of the prosecution that anyone who did not get involved in the rehabilitation process remained dangerous.

Studies show that authorities fail to predict "dangerous", and all methods fail: clinical prediction, statistical prediction and legal prediction.

Precisely to the best method of prediction, the test of reality, the judge does not attach importance: for the eight years since the indecent act, Simon has not committed a sexual offense.

In addition, he is 56 years old, and studies show that at such an age the instinct decreases and the danger decreases, even when it has existed.

With Shimon, it is doubtful if it ever took place.

The combination of the offense for which Simon was sentenced to two years in prison, the unnecessary supervision, being homeless and the lack of legal representation - a combination that led to a year and a half imprisonment for violating supervision conditions - is reminiscent of Jean and Jean's fate in "Poor Life", where Victor Hugo wrote: "In our culture, moments of horror: those in which the law rules on the deterioration of a person, in which society abandons a human being to its fate."

Were we wrong?

Fixed!

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