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.

Har­ri­et Ros­set­to, MSW, answered her call” to aid incar­cer­at­ed Jew­ish offend­ers, chal­leng­ing the denial of addic­tion and crime with­in the com­mu­ni­ty. Frus­trat­ed by recidi­vism, she envi­sioned and built Beit T’Shuvah, a world-renowned recov­ery cen­ter. Rossetto’s work has earned recog­ni­tion, includ­ing par­tic­i­pa­tion in White House round­ta­bles and an award from Pres­i­dent Oba­ma. After 40 years, she was forced to step down from the orga­ni­za­tion she found­ed. Har­ri­et received a Master’s degree in Social Work from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Min­neso­ta. She is mar­ried to Rab­bi Mark Bovoritz, for­mer inmate turned Rab­bi and co-founder of Beit T’Shuvah. They are the sub­ject of a doc­u­men­tary called The Jew­ish Jail Lady and the Holy Thief.