Uri L'Tzedek Prison Reform Campaign

Over 40 Orthodox Rabbis Call for Prison Reform!

The American prison system is broken and it's one of the worst human rights crises in America today!

America maintains the highest incarceration rate in the world (around 743 adults incarcerated per 100,000 population, 2009): overshadowing such countries as Russia, Iran, and Rwanda. Currently, 2.3 million Americans live behind bars.

Tax payers collectively pay $60 billion annually - the fastest-growing general fund expenditure in the United States right below Medicaid. The cost, both monetarily and socially, of prisons is growing exponentially, with contributing defects at every stage of the criminal justice system: draconian penalties on petty offenders, inadequate assistance of counsel, overcrowded prisons, failed rehabilitative programming, and underfunded reentry programs.

Our incarceration system is not just failing the people behind bars or even those at risk, but it is failing the American people, our community and our society.

Proper prison conditions, rehabilitation, and re-entry support, including funding vocational programs, increasing transitional living, and restoring voting rights, will benefit prisoners and the American public.

Our prison system is broken. We need to fix it.

Below, you can read articles and watch videos by Uri L'Tzedek Founder & President Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz:

1. Pregnant Inmates Chained During Labor: On the Dignity of Childbirth

2. A Pesach Plea for Prison Reform

3. Alternatives to Incarceration: A Jewish Approach

4. Solitary Confinement: When Solitude is no Longer a Virtue

5. Prison Reform: A Torah Perspective on the American Crisis

Also, please read the petition signed by Orthodox rabbis around the country calling for immediate change!