Good Reading

I just finished a marvelous book!
Dreams from the Monster Factory: A tale of prison, redemption and one woman's fight to restore justice to all. by Sunny Schwartz with David Boodell.

From the epilogue: "I still have dreams as I wander the halls of the jails I've patrolled for a quarter of a century. These prisoners are different form the ones I first met here in the 1980's. they seem more violent, less capable of empathy. but their stories of desperation, of failure, of violence, are the same. so is their potential. Whether we want to admit it or not, our fate is tied to them because, like it or not, they will be released into our communities at some point. we have the tools to help them join us as partners, as allies, as citizens, and not enemies."

Sunny was instrumental in initiating the RSVP program in San Francisco County Jails, a program which gathered up the most violent criminals put them in the same dorm and gave them the tools to help each other heal with fantastic results. Her program brought support to the victums, included the families and addressed everyones pain and failures straight on. Everyone in anyway connected to the prison system will be engaged with her personal as well as professional story written in a page turning way.

This essay by Helen Epstein entitled American's Prisons: Is there hope? reviews Sunny's book and the issues she raises is powerful and a gift to have been published in the NY Times! : http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22741
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Another good prison related book by a bay area author I read a few years ago: Visiting life : women doing time on the outside by Bridget Kinsella. Here Bridget shared her personal journey, first as a volunteer and later as a wife of a prisoner. She speaks frankly about how difficult it was to deal with the social stigmas of people both outside and inside the prison world as she followed the unlikely path of falling in love with an incarcerated man while telling a very human love story with a difficult ending. Its at our Sacramento Library.