Passover

April 12, 2011

A Pesach plea for prison reform

by Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz

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Last week, here in Los Angeles, we read with horror of an inmate in a local county jail who was strangled to death in his cell. This inmate had been complaining to a judge that he was being “hassled” by other inmates. Overcrowding and unsanitary conditions have plagued L.A. County’s jails for more than 30 years, along with a culture of violence and fear that includes prisoner-on-prisoner assaults and the use of excessive force by deputies.

Too often in recent years, state prisons have been used to house lower-level offenders and parole violators, which wastes money due to the costs of state prisons, aggravates already overcrowded conditions and hinders rehabilitation, because facilities can’t adequately serve so many inmates. Furthermore, while parole boards need some autonomy and flexibility in their decisions, those decisions also can’t be arbitrary. The Chowchilla kidnappers case, for example, is a case in California that may continue to be an arbitrary denial of parole. No children were hurt when these three men kidnapped a bus in 1976, yet they continue to be denied parole 35 years later.

This Chowchilla case is just one of the vast array of problems in the broken California penal system putting a strain on the state’s budget and welfare. It was recently found, for example, that the California Rehabilitation Center, a medium Level II correctional facility in Norco, Calif., was built to hold 1,800 inmates, but now holds more than 4,700 and is almost always under lockdown to prevent fights due to overcrowding. Parts of the buildings, built in the 1920s, are so outdated that electricity is shut off during rainstorms to ensure that prisoners aren’t electrocuted. It has been reported that the facility is understaffed by 75 guards, and its rehabilitation program for drug use has a three-month waiting list.

Over the past few decades, California has engaged in minimal reform for its prisons and yet has enacted tougher laws that put more people behind bars for longer times. More and more policies, notably the “three strikes” law mandating prison for life after three or more felony convictions, are created to follow an ethos that the goal of incarceration is punishment alone.

Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget cuts may bring promise for the expansion of community-based alternatives to incarceration, which have been shown to reduce crime and long-term recidivism (such as in Missouri, for example).

For now, conditions in our prisons remain extremely dangerous for the incarcerated. Many prisoners keep knives in body cavities, one ex-convict told me last week, to ensure they can protect themselves from brutal prison violence and rape. This horrific description haunts me.

Supermax prisons engaging in solitary confinement in the United States, in particular, are some of the most miserable places on earth. Impenetrable cement cells, where prisoners are fed through a hole, and the bare minimum of exercise are the norm for those residing in these 6-by-8-foot cells. Such conditions are not only inhumane, they bring on and worsen mental disabilities and raise the recidivism rate.

Federal, state and local governments must seek alternatives to incarceration to ensure more humane options, to reduce overcrowding and to cut budget costs. Incarcerating just one inmate costs about $30,000 per year, according to the Pew Center, and often perpetuates further criminal activity. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the United States has the highest incarceration rate and largest prison population of any country in the world.

Prisons have only gotten worse in modern times. Michel Foucault, the 20th century French philosopher, argued that the penal system had shifted from regulating one’s body, by means such as torture and corporal punishment, and replaced it with “technologies of punishment” regulating thoughts and behavior, by means such as strict surveillance and psychological abuse. This “disciplinary punishment” provides a potential abuse of power on the part of the parole officer, jailer, psychologist and program facilitator over the prisoner.

The inhumanity of today’s incarceration has no place in the Jewish tradition — aside from temporary pretrial detention (mishmar), the Torah has no model for prison and only provides a number of alternatives. The only exception is a brief period when the rabbis, under Roman influence, instituted a kipa, or temporary jail.

One biblical alternative proposed is that of the eved k’na’ani laborer, whom the Talmud requires be treated like his master. This is to ensure his dignity not be lessened in the process of repairing the wrong committed as he gives back to society. Another model, the “City of Refuge” (Ir Hamiklat), provides for the unintentional murderer a protective community operating much like a normal city.

The Jewish commitment to human dignity, even for those who have erred, can inspire us to affirm more of the alternatives to incarceration that exist in America today, such as: work crews, electronic monitoring, probation, educational sentencing programs, drug rehabilitation and house arrest. These less-expensive options work to address systemic problems in more sustainable and moral ways.

As we approach Passover, we can recall Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin’s (Netziv) teaching on Exodus 2:25 about the spiritual dangers of overcrowding in narrow spaces: “It is known that a wide-open living space widens one’s mind, and thus the opposite, a crowded living space and lots of people together, degrades one’s mind. Pharaoh strove to degrade the minds of the Israelites, and so he would press them in one place.” Scholars today argue that overcrowding narrow spaces is a great causal factor of prison rape. A cage can transform a man into a beast.

Slavery in Egypt was like an overcrowded jail that destroyed the minds of its inhabitants. The Netziv taught that conditions became so bad that it was clear that God needed to liberate these people. Today, we can emulate the Divine — we must hear the cries of those in very narrow spaces and advocate for more alternatives to the failing model that exists in today’s prisons.

When we are called upon this Passover to remember the foreigners living in our midst, we can think of the approximately 31,000 noncitizens, including children, held in immigration detention in America on any given day. Most especially, we can remember the few hundred immigrants, mostly children, who have died in incarceration, many of whose deaths can be attributed to medical neglect.

Rav Soloveitchik taught, “The halachah is not hermetically enclosed within the confines of cult sanctuaries, but penetrates into every nook and cranny of life. The marketplace, the street, the factory, the house, the meeting place, the banquet hall, all constitute the backdrop for the religious life.” It is time that those committed to Jewish law and values work to transform prisons in America, one of the greatest human rights problems in California and the United States.

We must be sure to maintain adequate and effective punishments for crimes, yes, but we must also remember and retain our feel for nuance in societal realities and cling to our tradition’s value of compassion for the dignity of all human beings, even of criminals.

This Passover, may we remind ourselves of those trapped in the darkest and narrowest straits.

Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz is the Senior Jewish Educator at the UCLA Hillel, Founder and President of Uri L’Tzedek, and a fifth-year doctoral candidate in moral psychology and epistemology at Columbia University. utzedek.org

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“the Torah has no model for prison and only provides a number of alternatives.” I have been waiting a long time for this to come to light. Jewish law handles crimes in a fine-tuned, customized, behavioral manner. Steal? Pay back double. Quadruple or quintuple for certain classes of property. Can’t afford it? Have your services or labor commandeered, something like Chapter 11. They translate that as ‘slave’ but who isn’t a slave by that standard?  Rape? Marry the victim. Ha! Talk about taking responsibility. Today’s woman wouldn’t accept that but people thought differently then.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 4/12/11 at 9:41 pm

The point is that people stayed ‘mainstreamed’ instead of rendered dysfunctional.

Meanwhile back in gentile society, punishments were flogging, amputating etc. From that point of view prison looks progressive. But it is a ‘one size fits all’ crimes approach.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 4/12/11 at 9:41 pm

I didnt think it was rape and marry.the rape says “no one was around to hear her cry"and for that man to be killed for it was the same as killing a brother,and for the woman no harm to come to her for she did no wrong.so the other was just willing fornication on BOTH parts. lets stop giving muslims a reason to insult. it doesnt say rape and marry,it clearly even goes a step above for womens rights saying she ALONE can give her testimony as a WITNESS for herself!for she alone will say she was raped ,because NO ONE heard.(muslims require 4 witnesses,men at that,to watch a rape which is ridiculous)Another place Torah is superior. no surprise! but it cetainly has to be interpreted correctly.

Comment by Shua on 4/13/11 at 5:24 am

Ben you say “today’s women” wouldnt accept that but that “people” (not G-d’s words you say) thought differently then.  at any time in history today or 5,000 years ago, can you see a woman marrying her rapist!? do you have daughters? if you do or will, can you see them getting raped and then marrying the rapist? thank G-d thats not what it says anyway. I recall a whole lot of philistines getting killed for the raping of one woman.sounds much better. maybe you are talking about Jewish man raping a Jewish woman,for which you apply different rules (albeit islamic mentality ones)but it clearly says this is as killing a BROTHER. Jew on Jew crime is outlined.many cannot see that.

Comment by Shua on 4/13/11 at 5:32 am

Thank you Shua, I was hasty and careless, and thinking in terms of the language of the blog post. I had gotten to thinking he meant ‘eved ivri’ instead of ‘eved k’na’ani’, so I went and did the same thing, midah k’negged midah.

Anyway, I was thinking of the sentences immediately following the section you are quoting which involves seduction and not rape; i.e. a social crime and not one of violence. Here it once would have been referred to as a shotgun wedding, in the Torah it is the law.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 4/13/11 at 6:01 am

I believe the woman would have the right to refuse in that situation, but under the circumstances why would she? The man has far more to lose by such a ruling, in the days before the satan got abortion legalized and virginity had a practical value.

The point is made that immorality is not taken casually and has permanent consequences, and that society protects social transactions as well as commercial ones.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 4/13/11 at 6:02 am

I agree,it is a shotgun wedding. and if Torah were followed all would be better.
and thank you for responding,I feel better now. Malchut has another stone in her buiding.
on a side note , today,April 13th, marks the beginning of the 7 day feast ,the end of which Vashti refused to come,paving the way for Esther…if I were to tie that in somehow though, i’d say misunderstandings pave the way to enlightenment. and pave the way from Shushan to Jerusalem via the east/shushan gate.

Comment by Shua on 4/13/11 at 6:11 am

The article correctly identifies the actual reason for prison overcrowding. County jail overcrowding caused the gradual transfer of over a third of the jail population to prison where they occupy about 48,500 expensive prison beds.It is not 3 strikes or lengthy prison terms. And it adds over a $billion to annual prison operating costs. It is not complicated!

Comment by rich mckone on 4/13/11 at 7:53 am

Of course, of course, greed and corruption are the drivers, as in so many things. The core difference between this and other issues is the priority of the human factor. Prison is dehumanizing. It is a statement that a person is not fit to participate in society but must be caged and controlled like an animal. And since we all are physically animals, the environment causes a reversion. There are animal models for robbery, murder, intimidation, assault, slavery, rape, incest, same-sex relations, euthanasia, abortion etc. We don’t call those crimes, but they are a degraded natural state that a human can enter.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 4/13/11 at 12:21 pm

This is why there is no prison in a society ruled by Torah law. This is what makes it an appropriate topic for a rabbi to discuss.

Bible 1.01 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth

Bible 1.02 The peak of creation is a humanity in God’s image - humanity is an abstract ideal in a talented and versatile animal body, the King of Beasts.

Bible 1.03 Implementation details for the disciplines that acknowledge the above, and what takes place when we disregard the above - every single force undermining God (1.01) undermines humanity (1.02) and vice-versa. The earth becomes a wild place devoid of divine protections, and people become wild creatures devoid of divine directions.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 4/13/11 at 12:22 pm

“No children were hurt” and therefore the kidnappers should not be punished more than they already have.

No children were hurt because they escaped while the kidnappers slept. Incompetence is not a defense.

You should spend your time protecting real victims.

Comment by Jon on 4/13/11 at 3:51 pm

What a hypocrisy. Last year Yankolovich could not find the words of compassion for Shalom Mordechai Rubashkin sitting in prison. In fact he basically said that he deserves incarceration on Passover.  Now suddenly he is all worried about the prison system.

Comment by Yankel on 4/14/11 at 9:09 am

No children were harmed??? They were kidnapped and buried alive for 36 hours in a moving van. While I agree that our penal system is extremely broken and in many instances inhumane, that a Rabbi and student of psychology should make such a statement is stunning. Many if not all of these children (now as adults) are still suffering with the psychological scars of this incident after 35 years. Is life without parole the appropriate punishment? I don’t know the answer but those children were most definitely harmed, for life.

Comment by Jamie on 4/14/11 at 10:11 am

Good call, Yankel. And let’s throw in Pollard while we are here.

Likewise Jon and Jamie. I forgot to say that a corollary for ‘no prison’ necessarily includes capital punishment for some irredeemable dehumanizing crimes such as kidnapping.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 4/14/11 at 11:20 am

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