Rachel Noah awarded the Halperin Award

 

Rachel Noah, a DPhil Candidate at the Centre, won The Emil Zola Chair for Human Rights' Halperin Award for Human Rights Research and Cause Lawyering in Israel. The award, at the sum of $10,000, has been given to Rachel and Maya Rosenfeld, PhD Candidate at the Hebrew University and the Director of the Prisoners Representation Department at the Tel Aviv Public Defence Office, for their co-authored article, (No)-Parole Committees? An Empirical Study of Parole in Israel, published earlier this year in the Israeli law journal Hukim. 

The article studies the reasons for the limited use of parole in Israel by analysing 346 parole committees' decision. It focuses on four central findings: the significant percentage of prisoners who waive their right to apply for parole; the state's objection to parole in 93% of the cases examined; the impact of prior prison sentences on prisoners' chance for parole; and how prisoners who did not participate in treatment programmes faced lower chances for parole, even though most incarcerated persons cannot access prison rehabilitation given their short sentences. The article concludes with several recommendations on how to expand the use of parole in Israel, in light of the Israeli government efforts to decrease the country's incarceration rates.

The Award Committee, which included senior Israeli jurists and the Former President of the Supreme Court of Israel, Justice Dorit Beinisch, described Rachel and Maya's work as 'an excellent combination of cause lawyering with innovative research that includes accessible reflective academic writing with the potential to create a positive impact'.