On March 2, 2009 I had the great pleasure of visiting RSVP, the San Franciso jail violence intervention program for its residents, which uses restorative justice.
Along with me learning about RSVP was Carissa Phelps (someone who deserves a whole book to describe what an inspiration she is–there is already a great documentary movie describing her amazing response to a challenging childhood).
It was wonderful visiting the program and also meeting with Sunny Schwartz and the rest of the amazing people who run the RSVP program. I wrote about Sunny’s book describing her journey into the work she does with violent offenders in another blog: http://www.lorennwalker.com/blog/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=45
RSVP is a highly cognitive program that has been evaluated and found effective for decreasing recidivism.
But what I was touched the most by was the kindness of the people running the program and the respectfulness of the residents. It was like being with family visiting RSVP…
Between both Carissa and Sunny and others passionate about improving our justice system there is a good wave of energy and changes are surely coming in the future. We just need to remain patient waiting for the slow wheels of the justice system to move, but we will be persistent knowing “we are never failures until we shop trying” Thank you Albert Joyner for that great idea!
