Dreams from the Monster Factory: A Tale of Prison, Redemption and One Woman's Fight to Restore Justice to All

by Sunny Schwartz

Book Overview

Powerful, captivating, and hopeful, Dreams from the Monster Factory goes beyond statistics and sensational portrayals of prison life and reveals the troubling realities of U.S. jails, and an astonishing alternative. .

Sunny Schwartz founded the Resolve to Stop the Violence Project (RSVP), a restorative justice program based in a San Francisco jail that has cut recidivism for violent rearrests by up to 80 percent. Schwartz makes...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1416569820
• ISBN13: 9781416569824
• Release Date: February 2010
• Publisher: Scribner Book Company
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.4" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Should be mandatory reading in law school

Having been burned a few times in the past by lawyer-authors, I was a little hesitant to pick up this book. However, as a current law student, the concept intrigued me and I was willing to give it a try. I was not disappointed. I think the first part of the book, the examination of Sunny's life, is an important set up. To understand her passion, one must understand her. In order to accomplish that, we need to know where she came from and what motivates her. She presents a balanced account and is respectful of both sides of the issue. Her personal accounts and the statistics that back up what she has written. Like Sunny, I want to see criminals punished, but I do not want the punishment to make them worse; I would like it to help make them better. From my early childhood, I knew that I wanted to be an attorney and in my early days as a law student, I decided I never wanted to work in criminal law. While I maintain that stance, I am glad to know that there are people out there like Sunny who have taken up this campaign and fight to make a difference. It would be nice if this were required reading in law school. While some of us might not want to practice criminal law, we need to appreciate what happens to prisoners and why we need even more respect for the lawyers that fight for their rights.

A true heroine

In one of his interviews after landing Flight 1549 safely on the Hudson, Captain Sullenberger said that he didn't consider himself a hero because he didn't choose to be in that situation; he was simply doing his job. He humbly pointed to all the unsung heroes -- our teachers, nurses, and many other unglamorous professionals -- who should get credit for the dedicated work they do every day, giving of themselves so that others can thrive. There is no one more deserving of Sully's definition of a hero(ine) than Sunny Schwartz. While our natural instincts tell most of us to stay as far away as possible from murderers, rapists, or gangbangers, Ms. Schwartz has dedicated her life to confronting the dark shadow of our society we'd all rather forget about. While no one would blame her if she just punched her time card and lived for retirement, this remarkable woman embarked on a journey into the belly of the beast over twenty years ago to get to the root of a vicious criminal cycle, and by sheer persistence and relentless compassion unearthed the deeper causes of human suffering. Like the old story about the Buddhist monk who tells his disciples that the way to tame the barking dogs is to run toward them, this is a story about deep healing through confronting our demons. By acknowledging that we are not separate and that in fact the most hardened criminals are human beings, and thus, a part of all of us, her RSVP program opens up the possibility for healing in a system set up for retribution. What makes "Dreams from the Monster Factory" so powerful is that it isn't an academic exercise but a deeply authentic personal account. The author's memories of growing up in a rough neighborhood on Chicago's South Side explain her own psychological bruises and invite the reader to go on a journey with her, rather than just taking a fleeting glance at prison life through a peep hole. But somehow her energy and sense of mission feel deeper than even childhood wounds: If you're comfortable with the idea of reincarnation, you wouldn't hesitate to place the author on the other side of the iron gate in a past life, seeing a part of herself through the bars in her current lifetime. Aside from the transformational quality of the story, it is really well written, so kudos also to her co-author David Boodell. A fiction writer would have a hard time coming up with a more spellbinding, soul-tickling story, and I ate it up in one sitting. Ultimately though, this story is not just about Sunny Schwartz, the criminal justice system, or the particular characters in the book, but a reminder to all of us that in order to find love and forgiveness we cannot lock away anyone's wounded heart, including our own.

Opened the eyes of this retributivist

To some degree like the author, I found myself in law school because I was fueled by passion about making a difference in the world. Rather than following my peers to their respective button-down law firms, I spent time working in the Brooklyn DA's office. There, I learned about the drag, the hustle, the administrative red-tape, the endlessness of the criminal justice system. You learn in law school that there are two main philosophies on why the penal system exists: the retributivist line (give 'em their just deserts) and the utilitarian line (the penal system is there to reform those who've wronged). I am a hardcore retributivist, a law-and-order type. I was really expecting Sunny Schwartz's book to be about some hippie, do-good woman wallowing in the boo-hoo stories of prisoners and justifying why we taxpayers should do more to help them overcome the "injustices" of their lives. I was pleasantly surprised. Dreams from the Monster Factory forces those of us who are familiar with the penal system (and who've developed a thick skin to its shortcomings) to face the uncomfortable fact that our prisons are simply not working, but there actually exists real and tangible ways where we can fix them. I was especially taken with the way she herself shared in the average man's anger with these convicts; she shared disgust with the crimes they committed against their victims. But she channeled that disgust beyond retribution and revenge; she wanted to break the cycle. The most compelling reasoning she shared felt like a light bulb going off in my head. We all want to punish these individuals. We want them to feel the pain that they've inflicted on others. Well, these prisoners do feel the punishments. Being in jail really does suck the life out of you. But the problem was that the criminals made no connection between the punishment they were experiencing and the crimes that they committed. They felt no remorse; it was always excuses: "The man was against me", "I was high on drugs", or "She was disrespectin' me and wouldn't lay off." Without making the connection between their actions and the consequential prison time, they took no responsibility and instead spent the duration of their punishment growing rage. And 90% of these raging people are set free, some day. I respect that the writing of the book was so straightforward. She related some of the failures of her program straight on. And yet, so much of it gave me so much hope. There is some autobiographical content and she shares the stories of fighting her own demons. It helps to see how the kind of therapy and self-awareness skills lacking in the prisoners are the same kinds that can also be impaired in law-abiding, every day people. I applaud her work. I think that this was one of the best books on the criminal penal system that I've read in a long time. Prosecutors, politicians, law professors, students of criminal justice and law, criminal attorneys, prison guards, and

Investing in Inmate Success

As the author states, there are many ways for life to fall apart, which seems to say that people need many options for putting them back together. Unfortunately, options for convicted criminals are limited and in the current economic climate are often the first to be reduced even further . "Dreams from the Monster Factory" is a compassionate, honest and challenging discussion of the programs Ms. Schwartz advocated for in the San Francisco jails. Discouraged with the established treatment (or lack thereof) found in correctional facilities, she took a different route ~ investing in the success rather than the failure of the people who are incarcerated, calling them to accountability in a productive way, requiring participation in educational and vocational classes and anger management programs that actually address the root causes of violence. Not to say that it is 100% effective or without problems but its hard to argue with cutting recidivism by 80%. One of the things that comes through clearly is that reducing violence and improving the overall health of the community must be the responsibility of every individual. The wardens, deputies, lawyers, social workers and the prisoners, victims, educators and folks like you and I coming together around the belief that there is always the potential for remorse and forgiveness, change and growth. The subject matter is difficult but the book itself an engaging and hopeful read. If knowledge is power, Monster Factory has the potential to fuel significant positive change in this area. It also contains helpful information on the relationship between shame and violence, addiction and some of the experiences that will enhance or destroy self-esteem.

The Sine Qua Non of Criminal Justice Narratives

Dreams from the Monster Factory is a quintessential beacon for anyone seeking to produce a work of hope out of a world of disillusion. In this seminal text author Sunny Schwartz adeptly weaves anecdotes from her personal narrative with illuminating stories of her professional struggles. Dreams from the Monster Factory thrusts the reader into the often enraging world of the criminal justice system. Rather than dismissing the incarcerated as sub-human reprobates or reducing her own story to one of falsely sequacious tropes, she commits herself to an honesty that is at times painful--but always rewarding--to read. Schwartz dismantles and subsequently reconfigures the hackneyed trope of restorative justice programs as soft on crime. Indeed, it is through her very reconfiguration of this binary that she manages to strike the delicate balance between a ruthless quest for justice and an overriding sense of optimism in humanity. Never falling prey to the traps of pedantry, Schwartz's great gift as a narrator is her ability to apply the same ruthless scrutiny to herself as to her often overwhelming surroundings. Through her steely nerves and professional perseverance, she defies naysayers and dastards to create RSVP, one of the most innovative and successful restorative justice programs in the world. On the concluding page of her epilogue, Schwartz writes, "In my dreams, we remake the monster factories into engines of accountability rather than instruments of retribution and despair." In my own dreams, this infinitely inspirational text will appear on the syllabi of every undergraduate at universities around the country. At my own university, I foresee no small amount of feuding between myself and my colleagues over who can stake a claim to this extraordinary text. Perhaps someday Schwartz will develop an RSVP program for academia...