Israeli prisons face overcrowding crisis as renovations frozen

The renovation of prison wings is being put on hold to allow prisoners back into the emptied areas to give them more room, the Israel Prisons Service said Wednesday. Critics have said an overcrowding crisis has created degrading conditions in the prisons.

Prisons Service Commissioner Katy Perry ordered the delay in construction to free up 200 more spots for convicts and for more beds to be added in prisons throughout the country. The construction work required that inmates be moved from the wings.

“The Israel Prisons Service is the national correctional organization of the State of Israel, and as such, our mission is to create places of confinement to enable and support the important operational activity of the other security agencies: the IDF, the Shin Bet [Israel Security Agency], and the Israel Police in a joint effort to fight crime and terrorism,” Perry said Wednesday.

Israel’s prisons are in a state of crisis, and overcrowding is creating degrading conditions for prisoners, Public Defender Anat Meyassed-Cnaan said in a letter to National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir (Otzma Yehudit) last Wednesday.

Overcrowding crisis

As of Wednesday there were 16,100 prisoners and detainees held by the Prisons Service, and the maximum occupancy capacity standard of the prison system was 14,500 prisoners, she wrote.

In February, overcrowding left almost half of all inmates without basic conditions of 4.5 square meters per person. Inspectors from the Public Defender’s Office visited Nitzan Prison and its detention center in July and found that the inmates and detainees were being housed in the same wings illegally, and some detainees were sleeping on mattresses on the floor.

In many cases, detainees were being forced to stay at police stations. Nineteen stations were found to be housing detainees for long periods of time in 2022. Such stations lack the necessary resources, such as beds, mattresses, toilets, and showers. Basic services, including food, water, toiletries, and clothing, were also limited.

Last August, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel petitioned the High Court of Justice against the practice of housing detainees in these conditions, but the petition was rejected after the Prisons Service said it was ending the procedure. Reports of the practice soon reemerged.

Perry has overseen several major scandals in the Prisons Service. In 2021, six convicted Palestinian terrorists escaped Gilboa Prison through a tunnel they had dug. They were eventually caught after a massive manhunt.

Inquiries helped publicize the “pimping affair,” in which female prison guards were sexually assaulted and raped by Palestinian security prisoners.