MH: Ross Lawson used to rob and terrorize strangers to support a crack-cocaine habit. Shortly before he was sentenced to life in prison, he found religion.
Born a secular Jew at Broward General Medical Center, he became Orthodox after a Surfside rabbi visited him in jail in 1997. As a member of a more traditional stream of Judaism, Lawson is supposed to eat kosher food and, at certain times, refrain from shaving or cutting his hair.
But state prison authorities have refused to accommodate him, citing, among other things, security risks inherent in beards and the high cost of bringing in prepackaged meals.
Faced with a shaven face and nonkosher food, Lawson, 34, of Fort Lauderdale, is suing the state in the hopes he can change their mind.
”Lawson sincerely believes that he is required to obey all 613 commandments encompassed with the holy Torah,” said Justin Uhlemann, a Miami attorney representing the inmate, who is from Fort Lauderdale.
Lawson’s fight comes a year after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a federal law requiring state prisons to accommodate the religious affiliations of inmates. It’s also close to three years since the state granted Allen Cotton, a convicted killer from Broward, access to kosher meals. Cotton, too, had sued the state.
Prison officials say they don’t plan to make kosher meals a habit. Instead, they’ve instituted the Jewish Dietary Accommodations Program at a handful of the state’s facilities. There, the kitchens try and keep meat and diary products separate — a provision of kosher law. But officials concede the food doesn’t meet the strict requirements of a kosher kitchen.
Premade, authentic kosher meals are expensive — and must be supplemented with items such as fruit and diary, bringing the cost to $15 a day compared with the $2.57 it costs to feed an inmate on traditional or JDAP diets, according to Kathleen Fuhrman, nutritional program manager for the state’s prison system.
But Derek L. Gaubatz, director of litigation for The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a Washington, D.C.-based public interest group, said the state’s costs are exaggerated.
”There are much cheaper ways to do it,” said Gaubatz.
He said kosher catering companies that work with other state prisons can provide three full meals for $7 a day per person.
Air Force Lt. Col. Ira Flax, a rabbi who has worked as a consultant for the Florida Department of Corrections, disagreed with Gaubatz.
”The FDOC has bent over backwards to meet the spiritual and dietary needs of a diverse Jewish population,” Flax wrote in a prepared statement.
”The bottom line for the department: It would be more expensive,” added Chaplain Alex Taylor, chaplaincy services administrator for FDOC.
The beard is a security, health and safety problem, Taylor explained.
Orthodox men are supposed to shave with clippers, not razors. During certain periods, men are also to refrain from cutting their hair or beards.
”A beard provides a convenient hiding place to conceal small items,” Taylor said. “This can be expensive because it takes more time to search a bearded inmate.”
Right now, there are about 1,600 Jewish inmates in state prison — about 1.8 percent of the total population, according to Taylor.
But the number who want kosher food is much less. The Aleph Institute, a Surfside group that does outreach for Jewish inmates, estimates there are only 50 Florida inmates who practice Orthodox Judaism.
Taylor said that the number isn’t the point.
”It’s the price and the disruption,” he said. ”It requires more people and more space and more time” to serve food from the outside.
The legal battle could take years to make its way to court. For now, Lawson is monitoring the fight from inside the Everglades Correctional Institution in Miami.
Sharon Lawson, Ross’ mother, said her son’s faith is everything to him.
”I’m surprised prison officials are making it so difficult for him,” she said during a telephone interview from her home in Ocala.
She said her son’s troubles began when he was in third grade at Sunrise Elementary in Fort Lauderdale, the year she and her late ex-husband separated. ”His father forgot he was alive,” she said. “He felt abandoned. He could never accept it.
Always mischievous, his mother said, Ross started experimenting with drugs a few years later. He tried crack cocaine at 13.
Several crime sprees later, he landed in prison. In 2002, he began a life sentence.
”He had finally turned his life around with Judaism,” Sharon Lawson said. “He will never do drugs again.”
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