Close every door to me,
Hide all the world from me
Bar all the windows
And shut out the light
Do what you want with me,
Hate me and laugh at me
Darken my daytime
And torture my night
If my life were important I
Would ask will I live or die
But I know the answers lie
Far from this world
Close every door to me,
Keep those I love from me
Children of Israel
Are never alone
The lyrics from the haunting song about Joseph in jail from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
Joseph was thrown in jail, falsely imprisoned by Potiphar and as a “self made man” he rose to power to be the viceroy of Egypt because of his ability to interpret dreams.
This weekend is Human Rights Shabbat, something we have participated in at CKI since I have been here. One of the areas that Tru’ah, Rabbis for Human Rights has worked on consistently, are the inequities in our justice system.
Sadly, there are still inequities in our justice system often down economic and racial lines. Here in Kane County, Sherrif Ron Hain has been working on this very problem.
As his bio says: “Ron was elected as Kane County Sheriff in November of 2018 and his team immediately implemented employment diversion programs into the jail, along with medically assisted treatment to support and redirect inmates with drug addiction issues. Sheriff Hain’s focus is to take a zero tolerance approach to street crime while providing positive life paths for incarcerated Kane County residents in an effort to drive down recidivism and crime rates.” https://www.kanesheriff.com/Pages/Message-from-the-Sheriff.aspx
What does that mean? His goal was to reduce the prison population 20%. He has exceeded that goal to 35%. It is an important goal to him because people who are imprisoned get tagged for life. It really wrecks havoc with the underlying fabric of society. There are other books that illustrate this point even more eloquently and well researched than I can ever do: Locked Down and Locked Out, Just Mercy and the New Jim Crow for starters. These books illustrate all too painfully what happens in a legal plagued by inequity systemic racism.
My former student, Tony award winning sound designer, Rob Kaplowitz recently said this: “One of my gigs requires me to re-apply for it every once in a while. Recently, they added Background Checks, which include criminal history stuff. Took me 6 minutes and I was done. I have good friends and admired colleagues with misdemeanors and felonies – some earned, some hung on them because they are Black Men in America. If I had checked the box, I would have had to provide a detailed report on my entire criminal history, including documents I’d probably have to pay to obtain. It would have taken up the majority of my night, if not more, and made me sweat bullets, wondering if a gig I thought I’d already gotten would be taken away from me. Those who have served their time and been released? Those who had their charges reduced or just accepted misdemeanor judgements because they were told “just plea guilty and you’ll walk away with a fine?” This idea of punishing someone for life – especially now that we can all agree that many Black Men get arrested for simply wearing the skin into which they were born? It’s straight bullshit.”
This can affect every area of life: employment as Rob has described. Housing—not just for you but for your family. Securing a loan. Education. Access to health care. Things that many of us take for granted in our privileged world. The very things that our holiness code, Kedoshim, Leviticus 19 told us we needed to guard against:
“You shall not render an unfair decision: do not favor the poor or show deference to the rich; judge your kinsman fairly.” (Lev 19:15)
Once people who are imprisoned, like Joseph, falsely, even if the government attempts restitution in a wrongful conviction, it is difficult maybe impossible to rebuild your life. https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/criminal-justice/ct-chicago-police-wrongful-conviction-lawsuit-verdict-eddie-bolden-20211029-oj7wm5vadzeazmndcdsscyscni-story.html
What price can you put on losing 30 or 40 years behind bars for a crime you did not commit?
All of this has been exacerbated by COVID-19. My own nephew, Dr. Brennan Klein, recently published an academic paper on the inequities of who was released from prison as a way to stem the spread of COVID-19. Here is the abstract:
“During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of incarcerated people
in the United States decreased by at least 16%—the largest, fastest reduction in prison
population in American history. Using publicly available data on prison demographics
across all 50 states and the District of Columbia, we show that incarcerated white people
benefited disproportionately from the resulting decrease in the U.S. prison population,
and the fraction of incarcerated Black and Latino people sharply increased. This pattern
deviates from a decade-long trend before 2020 and the onset of COVID-19, when the
proportion of incarcerated Black people was declining. Using case studies of several
states, we explore and quantify multiple systemic mechanisms that could explain the
disparities we identify: temporary court closures that led to fewer prison admissions,
state-level prison release policies that sought to de-densify congregate settings, and
changes in the frequency of police interactions. Ultimately, these findings illuminate
how systemic racism pervades juridical and penal institutions and is the engine of mass
incarceration in America.” The full paper is available upon request.
Joseph was falsely accused and falsely imprisoned. Our tradition commands us to pursue justice. Tzedek, tzedek tirdof. It is our obligation as Jews to stand up and to fight against the inquities in our justice system.