But Benoit’s recent promotion to chief administrator of the San Francisco County Jail No. 7 in San Bruno after many years in the police force couldn’t have been better planned had it been in the hands of mortals. The jail’s intensive rehab programs have fueled Benoit’s faith. And Judaism, in turn, has renewed her commitment to transform hardened criminals into better citizens.
“I am humbled that I have been brought to this work,” says the Noe Valley resident who now oversees 372 prisoners and 62 sworn staff. “It can make changes in people’s lives.”
With the help of activists from grassroots groups as well as public and private agencies, the captain has developed new rehabilitative programs and overhauled old ones that in recent years have lowered recidivism, staffers report.
And while anti-violence and substance abuse education are nothing new to San Francisco’s jails, acupuncture-assisted detox and a spiritual approach to rehabilitation have been the more innovative developments under Benoit’s leadership.
Chabad’s Rabbi Yosef Langer, who is active in prisoner rehabilitation, says Benoit brings the spirit of tikkun olam (healing the world) to the jail by adopting programs “that lift the body, soul and mind of its inmates. She gives them hope instead of locking the cell and throwing the key away.”
Benoit sets the spiritual tone among staff as well. Whether sharing parashahs with deputies during lineup or inviting jail clinicians — many of them unobservant Jews — to Shabbat dinner at her home, the captain has made her Jewish ethos clear.
She sees no conflict between her job and the Lubavitch outlook, which subordinates women to less visible roles. Chassidism also forbids females from touching men other than their husbands, though as the commander of the jail, Benoit sometimes must handle prisoners.
“I don’t run into problems because I use a team approach,” she explains. This approach “places more responsibility on staff to manage prisoners and share in administrative decision-making.”
Benoit’s Jewish subordinates say their new boss has attracted influential supporters in the local Jewish community. Many of them have rallied behind the department’s new Resolve to Stop the Violence Program (RSVP), which requires all violent offenders at the jail to undergo intensive counseling and anti-violence education both while in custody and on parole.
Jewish supporters of the $230,000 program include Rabbi Langer — who casts pearls of Jewish wisdom into planning sessions — and local financiers. Hungarian Jewish mogul George Soros kicked in part of the grant for RSVP, with the other half coming from San Francisco coffers after Jewish Supervisor Leslie Katz rallied city officials and fellow supes to support it.
“It’s a conspiracy — a beautiful [Jewish] conspiracy,” said Benoit’s program administrator, Sunny Schwartz, also a board member of the San Francisco-based American Jewish Congress.
“We comment and joke that [even though] there’s not too many of us [Jews] in the department, we’re the activists,” Schwartz added.
It was that sameness of purpose that first attracted Benoit to the Jewish community.
“I met [Jewish] people at work…ran into them while working on campaigns and made friends. I began to attend their holiday celebrations and started reading about it.
“I found that I was being drawn to Judaism.”
That attraction over a period of years resolved a spiritual quest of some 20 years spent studying other world religions and philosophies after her strict Catholic observance during childhood.
But it wasn’t until AJCongress threatened to sue County Jail No. 7 for denying kosher food to Jewish inmates that Benoit made her move toward conversion. While the lawsuit never materialized, AJCongress’ Tracy Salkowitz, the Northern Pacific region director, gladly referred Benoit to Rabbi Malcolm Sparer of the Jewish Home for the Aged, who performed the conversion ceremony about a year ago.
As a feminist, Benoit struggles silently with what she perceives as the second-class status of women among the Lubavitch. But her strict childhood spiritual observance makes less halachic movements seem superficial, she says.
“I will always be shomer Shabbos. That’s real clear to me.”