Israeli prison guards use violence, bed-binding and other forms of punishment according to the 2007 report on prison conditions released Sunday by the Justice Ministry's Department of Public Advocacy. "The use of abuse at the facility has become a matter of routine," noted the report in connection with an inspection at the Ofek Juvenile Prison for youth, where there were 21 suicide attempts and 19 cases of self-harm. "The severity of the phenomenon worsens when the prisoners are minors."
The report details findings gathered over the course of visits to 33 detention facilities around the country, 11 ofwhich were under the aegis of the Prison Authority, 14 controlled by the Israel Police and eight supervised by the court system. The Israel Prison Service (IPS) has since taken control of the police facilities.