Is this impression based on your experience seeing Israeli prisons? I've seen plenty of them, military and civilian, and my impression is completely opposite to yours.

I think this discussion will not be very productive. Anecdotal evidence is really not useful to present a full picture of the Israeli imprisonment system. For your story about thoughened laughing offenders, I can supply sotries of raped convicts, people who slept on the floor because there was a shortage of beds, people who needed extensive medical and psychological care, and more; but is is very understandable that a question such as "is it easy to do time" will always be a relative one.

As to your personal comment, I don't understand what it is based on. My appraisal of prisons has nothing to do with my background or expectations and everything to do with my professional experience. In discussing professional matters on the internet I try not to assume anything about the personal background of who I'm speaking to unless I know them very well, and would appreciate the same courtesy from others.

Oh, man! Lots of typos up there. I really should fix the Hebrew on this machine.

But using Dan's comment again (sorry, Dan) I wanted to ask if people here really believe that rough prison conditions would deter offenders. A myriad of research project presents this premise, at best, as highly questionable. For a sanction to be deterrent, one must assume perfect rationality and perfect information; and assuming this would be downplaying the social climate producing crime and thus missing the point entirely. Research from the seventies supporting deterrence has practically been rebutted. I'm not saying deterrence never works, I'm just surprised some folks here automatically assume it does.

(note to self: might be worth a short article on Haayal).

Economic research on crime and punishment advocates exactly what you're suggesting. Becker (1965) strongly recommends substituting prison for fines; and a good, socio-economic conscious method to do it is "day fine", based on different people's salaries.