New Jersey Monthly -When Mexico, Kenya and Great Britain set out to improve their criminal justice systems in recent years, the place they decided they most wanted to emulate was Newark.
That’s right; Newark, with its drugs and gangs and violence, its deteriorating buildings contrasting with its shiny new condos, and its lingering memories of the riots of 1967. Newark is where, despite long odds, a judge who presided from 2009 until 2017 at the municipal courthouse at 31 Green Street sent rumors rumbling internationally that a better way of dispensing justice was being put to the test.
Locals knew Judge Victoria F. Pratt by reputation before international admirers caught on. “Everybody knows her here, and everybody says the same thing: Judge Pratt don’t play,” says Trevor Powell, a 27-year-old Newark native who stood before Pratt in 2014 on a drug charge.
... “Judge Pratt taught everyone that individuals, if given a second chance, will seize the opportunity to do better,” says Vivian Sanks King, who acted as second judge while Pratt was chief judge in the courtroom known in Newark as Part Two. Pratt later stepped down to teach her methods in places as farflung as Ukraine and Dubai. In addition to favoring community service over short jail stints for low-level offenders like Powell, Pratt often assigned her defendants to write essays. Powell’s essay, in 2015, explored how good and bad choices affected his life.
MORE
No comments:
Post a Comment