Israeli Maximum-Security Prisons

• In Event: Convict Criminology Session 1: The Marion Experiment

Abstract

IPS officials have worked hard to maintain the idea of rehabilitation as a main goal. From the early stages of screening and intake, through the gradual advancement through block system prisoners are encouraged to develop accountability, and in return be rewarded with various privileges. As discussed in this chapter, the majority of inmates choose to be involved in employment, education, religion studies, and therapy as vehicles of change, while improving their chances of early release. These program opportunities enable most prisoners to maintain some control and direction over their lives, and better the conditions of their incarceration and sentence, and thus pose less threat on individual dignity. Further, the practice of furloughs available to MSF inmates assist in maintaining connection with
family and the community. The relatively low recidivism rate for prisoners released from Israeli prisons, presented earlier, suggests that these practices are not only humane but utilitarian as well. Such low rates are evidence that redemption is possible, and lives can be changed even in the harshest places, as in a maximum-security prison.

Authors

• Lior Gideon, John Jay College of Criminal Justice

• Dror Walk, Israel Prison Service

• Tomer Carmel, Israel Prison Service