Drug abuse in Israeli prisons is at a higher proportion than in the general population, according to Raphael Suissa, the Commissioner of Israel Prison Services. About 1,200 of some 9,000 inmates in Israeli prisons are currently using drugs, he said.
Of the 9,000 inmates, 3,000 are Arab terrorists, and 6,000 are Israelis, 1,000 of whom are Israeli Arabs. Most of the prisoners involved with drugs are non-terrorists and Israeli Arabs between the ages of 17 to 25, Suissa said. The terrorists are too disciplined and organized to get addicted to drugs, he added.
About 89 percent of the criminals involved with drugs are from Sephardic families, according to Suissa, the former mayor of Mazkeret Batya near Haifa.
“In the Jewish faith, the family is something central,” he explained. “The family in Arabic countries is strong — the father is like a king. Most of those who immigrated to Israel in 1949-50 were old and their children learned the language quickly while the parents couldn’t understand daily life. They relied on the kids and the children became independent and grew up on the streets. They became active in crime.”
The Ashkenazim, on the other hand, had smaller families, Suissa said, and the children immigrated alone to the kibbutzim. “The parents were also more educated than the Sephardic parents,” Suissa noted, “and they quickly found work and continued the strong family.”
Suissa, who became commissioner 1 1/2 years ago, believes there is a need to improve the rehabilitation system for the Israeli inmates. He recently travelled to the United States to observe American prisons and at the rehabilitation programs and to meet officials at prisons and with prison officials and the headquarters of the Federal Prison Service in Washington.
“I like to see every inmate as a human,” Suissa told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, speaking through an interpreter, Gen. Joshua Caspi, a representative to the U.S. of Israeli police and prisons. “I’d like to make life in prison more comfortable,” he continued.
Presently, in Israel, the budget allows for the treatment of only 200 prisoners. In order to treat all 1,200 drug users, Suissa said the prisons would need $1 million annually but are now receiving about one-sixth of that amount.
TWO-PRONGED WAR AGAINST DRUGS
The fight in Israel against drugs is two-pronged. Israeli police are trying to stop drug trafficking which is prevalent around the Lebanon border where hashish is sold. “Hashish is used in Egypt to our south,” Suissa said, “and we are in the middle, so part arrives in our area.”
Since the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the drug problem in Israel has continued to escalate, he noted. For the past 10 years the most accessible drugs have been marijuana, hashish and heroin, Suissa said.
“Cocaine and crack haven’t arrived in Israel yet,” according to Suissa, but he noted that Israel is always at least 5 or 6 years behind the U.S. and “unfortunately in a few years I think we’ll face the same problem.”
A second front in the attack against the drug problem is the prison service, which attempts to rehabilitate those users who end up in prison. “A lot of those users are victims of society,” Suissa observed, “and friends who bring them to the use of drugs.”
Suissa insisted that with proper treatment, many of the users can solve their addiction problem. The prison program includes a withdrawal process and psychological treatment.
ISRAEL AND U.S. CONTRASTED
Suissa, on his first visit to prisons outside Israel, found U.S. prisons to be organized, large, clean and comfortable as compared to prisons in Israel. “Our prisons are old. We got them from the British when they left in 1948 and the old buildings are not suitable,” he explained.
While in the U.S., Suissa visited local prisons in New York, Pennsylvania and San Francisco and federal facilities in Danbury, Conn., and Holtsville, Ala. He was most impressed by a rehabilitation center in San Francisco. The Delancey Street Foundation, run by Dr. Mimi Silbert.
Here, according to Suissa, people enter the center on their own will, live there and receive treatment, run their own lives, and work. “They become new human beings,” Suissa observed.
He said he plans to propose such a system in Israel, but its approval will depend on the budget. There is now a group in Israel, the Voluntary Organization for the Benefit of Israeli Inmates, which helps prisons with programs and donations. The organization, chaired by Chaoul Ben Simhone of Histadrut, comprises private personalities who do fund-raising and then allocate the money for specific programs requested by Suissa.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
