Date: Wednesdays, 

June 28 -  July 5, 12, 19, August 2  

(5 sessions)

Time: 7:00 - 8:30 PM (CT) / 8:00 - 9:30 PM (ET)

 

Facilitator: Rahmiel Hayyim Drizin, Esq.

Rahmiel Hayyim Drizin was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and graduated from Pennsylvania State University in 1982.  He then came to the Midwest to attend Northwestern University School of Law, graduating with honors in 1985. 

Following school, Rahmiel clerked for Chief Judge Walter Cummings of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and for Justice Joseph Gordon of the Illinois Appellate Court, First Division. 

In the early 1990s he joined the Office of the Cook County Public Defender, where he spent nearly thirty years representing those convicted of crimes both on appeal and on post-conviction review. 

Rahmiel retired from the Office in 2022 and was excited to begin assisting the HINDA Institute as Chair of the Lawyer Advisory Council, teaching classes, and doing chaplaincy work at Cook County Jail.

 

Topics: 

Lock and Key: What's the Point of Prison?

  • A quick glance at the statistics suggests an uncomfortable truth: modern-day societies imprison people at a rate unparalleled, and indeed unimaginable, in past times.
  • Why is this so? Why do we lock people up, and what do we hope to achieve by doing so?
  • Does the purpose of prison always outweigh the cons of conviction?
  • This lesson considers and contrasts secular and Talmudic theories of criminal justice, before suggesting how to ensure a more just justice system.

 

Justice, Justice Shall You Pursue: Standards of Evidence in the Talmud

  • Justice may be blind, but judges and juries must be clear-sighted.
  • How can we assess the truth of testimony?
  • Does every criminal confession pass muster, or are some inadmissible?
  • When can informants be considered credible?

 

Clean Slate: How Do Criminals Make Amends?

  • What is the ultimate aim of the criminal justice system?
  • If society seeks restitution for crimes and rehabilitation for criminals, it needs a better plan. It must consider what rehabilitation looks like, for which offenders and offenses it is applicable, and how to ensure sentencing contributes to this end.
  • The systematic program of repentance laid out in the Talmud considers what insights this process holds for the above questions and present-day criminal rehabilitation.
     

Moving Forward: Reacceptance and the Criminal Background Check

  • Every year, hundreds of thousands of Americans are released from prison and seek to rejoin society, but many are stymied by the public availability of their criminal records.
  • Is it possible to find a balance between the needs of society, prospective employers, and ex-offenders?
  • After surveying the contemporary situation, we look for answers in the paradigms of Jewish law.
     

An Ounce of Prevention: Addressing Crime Before It Happens

  • The best way to improve the criminal justice system is by keeping people out of it. But before any attempt to prevent crime can be made, its causes and preconditions must be better understood.
  • Judaism has long recognized the role of societal factors in the commission of crime: poverty and unemployment are significant, as are education, values, and personal character.
  • Looking into the roots of criminality, several specific preventative policy proposals, and the various concerns associated with them.


Click on the images to view the PPT slides

 

 

 

 

 

Click on the images to view the videos from the session #1 slides.