Sunny Schwartz, Author, "Dreams from the Monster Factory"
From: The Criminal Justice Conversations with David Onek
Length: 36:35
SCHWARTZ INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS
Schwartz on Restorative Justice:
"Restorative justice recognizes that crime hurts everyone -- victim, offender, community -- and it creates an obligation to make things right...What we were doing before was rehabilitation... but there were missing links. Where was the voice of those who have been hurt? Where was the voice of the community who has been traumatized? Where was the accountability of those who hurt people?"
Schwartz on the RSVP Program Being "Tough on Crime":
"This whole concept of "tough on crime" is such a fiction. I happen to think RSVP is the toughest on crime, because nobody wants to look themselves in the eye and really, really look at what they have done... The traditional approach is coddling prisoners... Who gets to sleep all day and watch TV and have their breakfast, lunch and dinner served to them? That's coddling."
Schwartz on Having the Mother of a Murder Victim Talk to Violent Offenders:
"Her first time on the floor she brought pictures of her murdered daughter and grandson and told the story, sentence by sentence, word by word, of what it was like. She talked to the men, looked each of them in the eye, shook their hand and said 'If I prevented one you from doing the same thing that was done to our family, I did my job.'... There was not a dry eye in the room."
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Related Pieces
Piece Description
SCHWARTZ INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS
Schwartz on Restorative Justice:
"Restorative justice recognizes that crime hurts everyone -- victim, offender, community -- and it creates an obligation to make things right...What we were doing before was rehabilitation... but there were missing links. Where was the voice of those who have been hurt? Where was the voice of the community who has been traumatized? Where was the accountability of those who hurt people?"
Schwartz on the RSVP Program Being "Tough on Crime":
"This whole concept of "tough on crime" is such a fiction. I happen to think RSVP is the toughest on crime, because nobody wants to look themselves in the eye and really, really look at what they have done... The traditional approach is coddling prisoners... Who gets to sleep all day and watch TV and have their breakfast, lunch and dinner served to them? That's coddling."
Schwartz on Having the Mother of a Murder Victim Talk to Violent Offenders:
"Her first time on the floor she brought pictures of her murdered daughter and grandson and told the story, sentence by sentence, word by word, of what it was like. She talked to the men, looked each of them in the eye, shook their hand and said 'If I prevented one you from doing the same thing that was done to our family, I did my job.'... There was not a dry eye in the room."
Transcript
DAVID ONEK: Welcome to the Criminal Justice Conversations podcast, a coproduction of the Berkeley Center for Criminal Justice and the Berkeley School of Journalism. I’m your host, David Onek. The podcast, recorded weekly in the Berkeley School of Journalism studios, features in-depth interviews with a wide range of criminal justice leaders: law enforcement officials, policymakers, advocates, service providers, academics, and others. The podcast gets behind the sound bites that far too often dominate the public dialogue about criminal justice to have detailed, nuanced conversations about criminal justice policy.
Today’s guest is Sunny Schwartz, author of Dreams from the Monster Factory: A Tale of Prison, Redemption, and One Woman’s Fight to Restore Justice for All. Schwartz is a nationally recognized expert on criminal justice reform with over 25 years of hands-on experience in th...
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