Abstract
This chapter explores how Jewish values may help change ideas and attitudes on solitary confinement and encourage prison reform. Challenging the increasing use of solitary confinement in prison in the USA and elsewhere, this chapter explores the social aspect that underpins the commission of criminal acts. Drawing on Jewish ethical teachings, Biblical stories, and Halachic civil law, an innovative conception of crime as resulting from a person’s dislocation and detachment from society is presented, and on this basis a call is made to consider ways of responding to crime that do more to resocialize offenders and to reduce the use of measures that reinforce social isolation.
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Notes
- 1.
The census figures show 44,371 prisoners in protective custody (for their safety) and disciplinary segregation (minor infractions) or 55 % of total confined prisoners. This is an underestimation because not all prisoners in administrative segregation are placed there because they pose a threat.
- 2.
For example, “three strikes” laws allowed prosecutors to charge those guilty of three minor crimes as if they had committed a serious crime. Reduced usage of parole and increased usage of determinate sentencing also limited the possibility of early prisoner release on good behavior. See Chap. 2 of Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow (2010) for further information.
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Bolts, S., Ives, Y. (2016). Solitary Confinement and Prison Reform: A Jewish Paradigm. In: Ben-Avie, M., Ives, Y., Loewenthal, K. (eds) Applied Jewish Values in Social Sciences and Psychology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21933-2_12
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