Israel's military prisons operate a rehabilitation program for imprisoned soldiers based on a psychosocial diagnosis. The program's essential aim is to help soldiers complete their service and avoid re-incarceration. This article describes the program, its function related to the integrative law court, and its role as the army's probation service. It further presents a unique perspective regarding military rehabilitation programs, demonstrating how rehabilitation leads to recidivism. It concludes with a recommendation for incorporating an organizational change in the program that involves redistributing the existing sections to operate under two different authorities.

In contrast with studies examining the incarceration experience in civil prisons, there is a lack of literature and theory focusing on the military prison incarceration experience. The present retrospective qualitative study explored the experience of 27 Ethiopian-Israelis, an overrepresented population in Israeli military prison, incarcerated during their military service due to desertion offenses. Two main themes developed from the interviews: (a) the military prison as a tool to achieve personal goals and (b) Self-perception as victims of the system. Findings suggest that military prison incarceration may be a different experience to that of civilian incarceration, at times lacking the negative psychological described in literature on civil incarceration. On a theoretical level, results suggest that the incarceration experience may not be universal but, rather, dependent on the social and cultural context and meaning of the incarceration for the individual involved.