The main and important resource of the Prison Service, after manpower, is places of detention. The IPS prison standard, set by the Minister of National Security, is 14,500 places of detention. In practice, 16,100 (!) prisoners and administrative detainees are currently incarcerated in prisons.
Background: On 13 June 2017, the court ruled that within nine months, the state must guarantee each prisoner and detainee a living area of 3 square meters (excluding the toilet and shower), and that within 18 months, the state must allocate each prisoner and detainee a living area of 4.5 square meters that will include a toilet and shower or 4 square meters without the toilet and shower.
Prison cell wing at Rimonim Prison,
A consequence of this decision was supposed to be the allocation of resources and budgets by the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Public Security (now the Ministry of National Security), for the purpose of establishing new prisons and additional prison wings – which in practice did not happen. The IPS was forced to implement the court's decision by reducing the number of prisoners in cells – a cell where eight prisoners were held, for example, currently holds four prisoners – which led to a significant reduction in the number of places in prisons.
The Israel Police's fight against crime and crime families forces the IPS to allow the police multiple arrests – something that the IPS finds very difficult to meet, and the same applies to arrests of terrorists by the Shin Bet. Here are my recommendations for solving the overcrowding crisis in Israeli prisons.
The Prison Crisis: Solutions
First, alternatives to incarceration must be significantly increased. The standard for the alternative to electronic handcuffing, for example, stands at 1,200 supervised persons, and it is required in the first stage to increase it to at least 2,000 supervised persons.
Coalition drops electronic handcuff bill || Knesset Channel
The same applies to community service: the maximum period of community service is currently nine months, so it is recommended to consider – after a legislative process, of course – extending the period for a whole year.
All of this requires budgets - and urgently! The Ministries of Finance and National Security should budget for an increase in the number of places of detention by building "prison clusters" – a complex of prisons, courtrooms, and fire and rescue services – such as the prison cluster decided upon in the Megiddo Prison compound, at the initiative of IPS Commissioner Kathy Perry, alongside the establishment of prison wings in existing facilities.
Guards at Gilboa Prison, Archive, Photo: Moshe Shai
Finally, increasing the salaries of prison guards would be a welcome move, but no less important would be an urgent increase in the prison standard.
The writer is a retired brigadier general, former head of the IPS intelligence division and commander of five security and criminal prisons.
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