The state cannot yet comply with a High Court of Justice ruling from four and a half years ago ordering it to increase the amount of space allotted to each person in Israel’s prisons and detention centers, Justice Minister Gideon Sa’ar has warned.
He says the solution is to build more prisons. But an expert in criminal law argues that alternatives to custody are preferable.
In June 2017, the court deemed existing prison conditions unacceptable and ordered the state to gradually increase the living space allotted to each prisoner until it reached 4 square meters per person in cells without a toilet and shower or 4.5 square meters for cells with toilets and showers. It also set a deadline of December 31, 2022 for reaching that target.
In a letter sent last week to Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and the finance and public security ministers, Sa’ar wrote that in order to meet this deadline, “We must advance suitable long-term solutions – that is, more places of imprisonment – without delay, whether by renovating or expanding existing facilities or by building new prison facilities.”
He also noted that May’s riots in Israeli mixed Arab-Jewish cities resulted in a large number of arrests in a very short time, thereby increasing the number of detainees “in a way that wasn’t taken into account when planning the number of places needed.”
Currently, the Israel Prison Service obtains new cell space when needed by releasing some prisoners early, a practice known as administrative release.
But Sa’ar said that relying on this practice “will set a mistaken ‘revolving door’ policy for many years to come. On one hand, the state invests resources in increased enforcement to eradicate crime, but on the other hand, at the same time, it promotes the early, accelerated release of people against whom it just recently sought to increase criminal enforcement.”
Israel releases hundreds of prisoners due to prison overcrowding
Ex-con speaks out on life and death in Israeli prison
Lawmakers find ‘intolerable’ conditions in surprise visit to Israeli prison
The cabinet has passed resolutions calling for adding space for an additional 1,281 prisoners by the end of 2023. But Sa’ar said “It’s already clear that this increase is far from sufficient to enable full compliance” with the court’s ruling.
This is partly because the new facilities aren’t slated to open until a year after the court’s deadline for increasing the space per prisoner, he said. But in addition, “this number doesn’t take into account the real gap between the number of prisoners and the number of places needed for them in prisons.”
More places of imprisonment are therefore needed to comply with the ruling, Sa’ar continued. But they are also needed because of “anticipated future developments, like growth in the population of prisoners and detainees, because of both growth of the general population and stricter enforcement in line with the government’s policy decisions and strategic targets for eradicating crime.”
While he realizes that the Finance Ministry opposes creating space for more inmates, he added, “this situation is unacceptable,” because in the absence of more space, the state will have to rely on freeing even more prisoners early.
Prof. Oren Gazal-Ayal, an expert in criminal law from the University of Haifa who served as coordinator for a government-appointed committee that examined how best to fight crime, agreed with Sa’ar that administrative releases are a terrible way to reduce the prison population. Nevertheless, he added, increasing the number of inmates prisons can hold is unrealistic in the foreseeable future.
“Aside from a few changes to existing prisons that won’t enable any real increase in the number of places, the only plan that’s now on the table is building a large cellblock at Megiddo Prison,” he said. “But this is a process that will take at least another six years to complete, and until then, we need to find alternatives to jail.”
Moreover, he said, even after the new cellblock at Megiddo is finished, “expanded use of alternatives to arrests and prison sentences will still be needed, because at the same time, we’ll need to close several old and very expensive prisons. Today, for instance, keeping a prisoner at the old facilities costs the state about 250,000 shekels [$81,000] a year, because these facilities are very expensive to operate.
“For 250,000 shekels a year, we could maintain a great many prisoners in alternatives to prison that would do much more to assist their rehabilitation than prisons would, and thereby reduce crime,” he added.
Gazal-Ayal also argued that building new prisons isn’t an effective way to fight crime.
“The solution must be developing alternatives to custody, expanding the use of alternative sentences in place of prison terms and expanding the early release of prisoners who don’t pose much risk,” he said.
“These steps could greatly reduce the need for administrative releases and ensure that the truly dangerous prisoners, those whose dangerousness can’t be significantly mitigated through other methods, stay in prison longer.”
