NCJ Number
208666
Journal
Corrections Compendium Volume: 30 Issue: 1 Dated: January/February 2005 Pages: 26-27,33
Date Published
January 2005
Length
3 pages
Annotation
This article profiles patterns of terrorists' behavior while inside Israeli prisons and the strategies used by Israeli prison staff to deal with them.
Abstract
Terrorists ("security prisoners") housed in Israeli prisons are now held in separate wings that hold approximately 100 inmates in large cells that contain between 30 and 40 inmates each. Seventy percent of the security prisoners have been sentenced for murder. Security prisoners view themselves as still involved in the mission of their terrorist organization despite their incarceration, that mission being the establishment of a Palestinian state. The hope of many is to draw the attention of their organizations so they can be named in possible prisoner exchanges. Security prisoners organize among themselves according to their outside organizational affiliation, and they attempt to communicate with their outside organizations through written messages and cell phones smuggled into the prison. Hunger strikes have been mounted to protest specific prison policies, but have been abandoned when the Prison Service has refused to accede to their demands. Attacks against prison staff have included stabbings, beatings, tossing of boiling oil, and attempted kidnappings. These have increased over the past few months. The basic strategy of managing security prisoners is to provide legal surveillance while preserving basic inmate rights and to prevent security prisoners from directing terrorist activities from within the prisons.