The Israel Prison Service's world collapsed Monday when six inmates, some of whom I know from my years as director of the maximum-security Gilboa Prison, managed to escape.
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The incredible ease with which the six succeeded in breaking out of a prison cell and fleeing without anyone noticing has caused a great deal of embarrassment for the IPS and the State of Israel. The IPS is shaken and under constant media attacks from every possible direction due to the failures that led to the prisoners' escape.
There's no denying this was a failure. There are those who would call it "a serious and unprecedented event," each individual in accordance with their worldview, experience, and relationship to what goes on in routine times at detention facilities for security prisoners.
There have been growing calls from senior security establishment officials, all kinds of former officials, members of the media, and various stakeholders for the ouster of IPS head Lt. Gen. Katy Perry, the Northern District head, and a series of other officeholders seen as responsible. It would not surprise me to learn there are those within the Israel Prison Service in particular and the Israel Police in general who are looking to adopt these calls to exact their revenge on those responsible.
The need to draw personal conclusions toward those responsible is oftentimes an integral part of the recovery process of learning the necessary lessons from an event. It is nevertheless my belief that no matter how many heads are made to roll, Israel will not prevent the next escape. The opposite may even be true. This could pave the way for prisoners for whom this thought has only now entered their minds.
Nothing could be easier than joining the chorus of those blaming only the IPS and the woman at its head for this event. But the truth that is so difficult to swallow is that no one is genuinely interested in the complex and difficult job of managing the microcosm that exits between the prison walls. This is the State of Israel's complicated and neglected backyard.
According to all those "in the know," everyone involved should be ousted, in a move that would surely cripple the IPS. Who then will continue to guard not only the security prisoners, but the minors, criminals, detainees, and women? Who will contend with the rioting and fires, all the while putting their own lives at risk? Who will continue to perform an incredible variety of tasks of rehabilitating prisoners and accompanying them to the court and the hospital? Who will work under the unbearable pressure of threats and a lack of adequate sleep in the kind of work environment one would expect in the developing world?
Who will endure the difficult job of receiving the baby killers, rapists, and pedophiles who need to be cared for and protected and later go home to their families and children as their hearts threaten to explode? Who will manage the prisons during a pandemic, when relatives of prisoners do not visit and there is no movement inside or out?
I know it won't be any of those impassioned critics now making the rounds at the TV studios. I have no doubt that, as I write these lines, plans for the next escape from one of the prisons around the country are already being made. Prisoners have all the time in the world. This is a real battle of the minds.
It wasn't just the inmates at Gilboa Prison who dug a tunnel and hurt the IPS. The state and its various governments throughout the years have cracked the prison service, creating significant gaps, for the worse, between the IPS and similar prison systems around the world. What the IPS needs now is genuine reform, not just in how we detain prisoners and prevent their escape, but on all fronts, including shaking up and improving intelligence and operations systems, infrastructure, and technology.
In conclusion, I know the head of the IPS and the head of the IPS' Northern District personally as well as the incredible loneliness they feel right now. For everyone's sake, I would like to hope the probe into what happened and the conclusions drawn as a result don't see the baby being tossed out with the bathwater. I wish a happy and successful new year to the dedicated commanders and staff of the Israel Prison Service.
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