The Interview with The Hon. Stephanie M. Sawyer, Municipal Court Judge Promoting RBSS, a Mechanism for Judges to use to Reduce Recidivism
This episode features, Judge Hon. Stephanie M. Sawyer is trying to make a difference in Philadelphia and stated that once she got elected to the Bench, as a Municipal Court Judge, the first thing she said to herself was that she was not going to be the kind of Judge that was going to “feed the beast that was mass incarcerations.” In fact, Judge Sawyer revealed that, “that is how the system currently operates,” but stop short of providing any further comments on the issue and decided to table her opinions on the matter for later.
Nevertheless, Judge Sawyer went onto explain that the general path when someone gets convicted, except for “Intentional Carve Outs…,”Ms. Sawyer, interrupted her chain-of-thought to explain what is meant by Intentional Carve Outs, important to understanding the point she was about to make concerning the general path when someone gets convicted. According to Judge Sawyer, “Carve Outs” are things such as Accelerated Rehabilitated Disposition. For example: “they say if you have a zero prior record score, we're not going to put you through the criminal record system, & we are going to give you a different path. They have drug treatment court, so because you’re a drug addict we are going to carve you out of the Criminal Justice System and treat you in this manner, or Veteran’s Court, because you’ re a Veteran we are going to carve-you-out of the Criminal Justice System and treat you in this path, or Mental Health Court, because you have mental health problems, we gonna carve you out of the Criminal Justice system….” Judge Sawyer then went back to where she had left off, when she was commenting on the general path when someone gets convicted, except for intentional “Carve Outs,” pointing out that:
the Criminal Justice system works like this, “a Judge will sentence somebody to probation and flog-them-off to probations or flog-them-off to probation officers, or they’ll sentence them to Incarcerations and flog-them-off to the Department of Corrections and [over ninety percent] (90 %) get out. Then they get flogged off to Parole Officers. And the next time that Judge who sees the person they sentenced, will be when a Probation/Parole Officer is so frustrated that they opine revocation, because the Defendant [or Parolee] is either not doing what the Probation or Parole Officer asked them to do or have a new case, or has a new conviction. In those three (3) circumstances, a Probation/Parole Officer will request a “Violation of Probation Hearing” to recommend additional punishment. And the next time a sentencing Judge sees a person that they had sentenced, is when that happens – [meaning Revocation, Re-incarceration leading to Mass Incarceration]. This led her to a very important conclusion couched in a question, “so if Judges sees people only to punish people, when exactly do they help?” As such, Judge Sawyer explains that she has created a system, a program called “Resource-Based Sentencing and Supervision”; indicating that “it’s how you sentence and it’s how you supervise. In that model, Judges are part of the solution. Judge Sawyer stated that: “most of my corner boys, they are frustrated entrepreneurs, if we give them a change of product, then we’d be actually doing something. So, [we help to cultivate] their entrepreneurial spirit... As a Judge she is trying to help reduce recidivism through the "Consentencing Foundation" that will be launched in November. This episode is available as an article in www.theneoliberal.com, The Neoliberal Commentary in LinkedIn or renaldocmckenzie.com
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