Ear­li­er this week, Har­ri­et Ros­set­to wrote about her recent­ly pub­lished spir­i­tu­al mem­oir Sacred House­keep­ing and Beit T’Shu­vah, a faith-based recov­ery com­mu­ni­ty for those leav­ing prison. She has been blog­ging here all week for Jew­ish Book Coun­cil and MyJew­ish­Learn­ing.

A six­teen-year-old boy, dri­ving drunk, killed four peo­ple. His attor­neys cit­ed ​“affluen­za” as the cause of his reck­less­ness and rec­om­mend­ed treat­ment, not con­fine­ment. Affluen­za is the term used to describe young­sters who are out of con­trol as a result of wealthy indul­gent par­ents who set no lim­its or consequences.

The judge sen­tenced him to ten years’ pro­ba­tion and treat­ment for his alco­holism. Her deci­sion has attract­ed a lot of atten­tion. The victim’s fam­i­lies are out­raged, demand­ing jus­tice. Would a poor or minor­i­ty teen have escaped incar­cer­a­tion? Was jus­tice bought? Is pun­ish­ment jus­tice? Is jus­tice sub­ject­ing every­one equal­ly to the harsh­est punishment? 

My expe­ri­ence with young­sters afflict­ed with affluen­za shapes my opin­ion that this is an enlight­ened judge and a rea­son­able sen­tence. Good treat­ment and com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice can teach this young man respon­si­bil­i­ty and remorse, allow­ing him to redeem him­self through a life of ser­vice to oth­ers. Incar­cer­a­tion, revenge and pun­ish­ment would mere­ly rein­force his sense of enti­tle­ment and vic­tim­iza­tion, the cause of his irre­spon­si­ble actions. 

Enlight­ened con­se­quences to crim­i­nal and irre­spon­si­ble actions should be equal­ly applied, regard­less of wealth or the best defense attor­neys. This to me, is more just than sub­ject­ing every­one to a sys­tem of puni­tive con­fine­ment that is equal­ly inef­fec­tive. ​“An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”

Har­ri­et Ros­set­to is a rebel spir­it. She is a self-pro­fessed mis­fit who felt she was oper­at­ing her life on the fringe. It is there that she found her fierce call­ing: help­ing bro­ken souls and chang­ing a bro­ken sys­tem. Read more about Har­ri­et Ros­set­to and Sacred House­keep­ing here.