Transcript, E203: Judge Victoria Pratt on leadership through procedural justice

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LinkedIn News.

Jessi Hempel:

From the news team at LinkedIn, I'm Jessi Hempel, and this is Hello Monday. So, many systems feel impossible to change, right? I mean, I think of teachers here or nurses and doctors, anyone working in a large institution or within a big company.

Today's episode is about how change can happen, how we can help it happen from within. My guest is Judge Victoria Pratt. She's executive Director of Odyssey Impact and the author of The Power of Dignity: How Transforming Justice Can Heal Our Communities.

See that word there? Heal? Judge Pratt is in reforming the criminal justice system. Her book is built around the question of what justice can look like when it's built around the foundation of respect. Judge Pratt is a former Chief Judge of Newark Municipal Court, that's New Jersey's largest municipal court system.

In her time on the bench, Judge Pratt transformed her courtroom into a place that could both punish, but also heal. It became a place where problems can be solved, and communities could support one another. It became a place of hope. In our conversation today, Judge Pratt will push us to consider how we all have agency.

We choose how we treat each other. And we also choose how we can act as leaders within our own families, communities, companies. She'll introduce an idea called procedural justice, and she'll explain how it applies to everyone circumstances. It's a leadership framework forged in that courtroom, that can be applied just about anywhere. Here's Judge Victoria Pratt.

Judge Victoria Pratt:

As a young girl, I decided that I wanted to change the world. And there was nothing anyone could say to me, that could dissuade me from it, or that there was a possibility that this little colored girl from New Jersey could do something that can make life better.

And I spent a lot of time seeing folks impacted by systems, not just the justice system, but what poverty looks like, what it looks like to be an immigrant in this country. I am the daughter of an African-American garbageman, who spent his summers in the segregated south.

And my father never felt like he had the full rights of citizenship in this country. [foreign language 00:02:25], and what that means, be the firstborn child of a Spanish-speaking immigrant or any other language immigrant. And so, I spent a lot of time advocating and really seeing how injustice impacted my family.

I ended up back in New York when, um, Cory Booker ran and became mayor. And they started pointing all these new judges, I was like, "Wow, what an awesome opportunity to really impact a person's life, which is at the front door of justice, right?" Most people will only see the municipal court. But it's really what drags people into court, all of their social ills, all of their problems.

Jessi Hempel:

For our listeners who may not have ever been in a municipal court or understand what that means, like wha-, wha-, what is the significance of the municipal court? Who ends up there?

Judge Victoria Pratt:

Your traffic matters are at the municipal court, the lower level, criminal matters, criminal trespass, domestic violence, simple assault cases. And you'll also have theft, different levels of theft. Uh, but in a place like the city of Newark, probably, at one point, produced like 65% of the criminal cases that when up to the superior court.

Many of those cases that are more seriously dealt with at the superior court level get downgraded, so they get sent back down to the municipal court to be dealt with. And so, it's a lot of the mentally ill homeless woman who is violating what's called quality of life charges, uh, and those could be sleeping in public, drinking in public, smoking in public. But when you're homeless, the public is your home.

Jessi Hempel:

Right.

Judge Victoria Pratt:

And so, those people end up with criminal offenses, actually, even if they end up with a city offense, which is not necessarily a criminal offense, they're facing up to 30 days in jail. And what puts them in this cycle is how we are required to adjudicate their cases, which means, when they come before you, you impose costs and fines.

And so, the municipal court has minor contacts with the criminal justice system that have major impact on a person's life. So, they get a fine... you're a homeless person, you get a fine, we know you can't pay it. I impose that fine so that you can go home and you get set free.

But as soon as you don't pay that fine, another bench warrant issues for your arrest. So, now, the officers pick you up because now you owe a debt, which is a violation of the court's order, you didn't pay and you end up on this conveyor belt of injustice. That's really what it is.

And people get picked up multiple times, multiple times, for years, on these cases until someone decides to either give this person jail time for the money that was initially imposed, or to just finally vacate that fine.

Jessi Hempel:

As I read your book and I read about so many of the examples that you cited, most of the people were guilty, simply of acting out in a moment of perhaps upset while in poverty, like their guilt was their poverty, which of course makes no sense at all.

Judge Victoria Pratt:

It doesn't. But that's what I mean about we have these laws of annoyance, right? These laws that say, "Oh, that guy stole a $5 candy bar at North Penn Station or Newark Penn Station City," still, probably not. But should we make a space for him to eat?

Yes, we should, just... I'm talking about homelessness, because homelessness is created when those who are in-charge of our municipalities or our places. When people get gentrified out of a neighborhood, where do they go? They've lived there, there's no place for them to live.

And so, instead of us forcing developers to create space or to help us deal with this social ill that we know is going to happen when people get driven out of their homes, what happens when a person's mentally ill and they're not taking their medication?

They end up on the street. They end up in places creating noise. And so, being a disorderly person is causing alarm. So, if you're not on your medication and you're decompensating somewhere, you're screaming and yelling, "Oh, that's a violation of the law."

And you get a trip to the courthouse, actually, to the city jail, as opposed to the hospital, which is where you are best suited, where there's medication to deal with those issues and it's counterintuitive.

Jessi Hempel:

So, you are appointed to the bench and you become a new judge in this environment that-

Judge Victoria Pratt:

Yes.

Jessi Hempel:

... you have described. What does sentencing look like and what do you learn about it early on?

Judge Victoria Pratt:

That I'm in a place with a lot of broken, sick, hungry, mentally ill, like physically ill people.

Jessi Hempel:

Yeah.

Judge Victoria Pratt:

And that what we're doing makes no sense. And that I come from a space of service. So, when you see someone with a need, you serve them.

Jessi Hempel:

Yeah.

Judge Victoria Pratt:

And the bench was not that, the bench was processing. As I said, we were like in this hallucination where we were processing and imposing fines and we knew folks couldn't do anything about them. I mean, even in a traffic matter, if a person's lost their job and they've got fines to pay, and you're like, "Okay, pay $100 a month." How?

Jessi Hempel:

Right.

Judge Victoria Pratt:

And then, the only recourse is for them to go to jail. And so, it was sad, it was just sad to go to work and feel... I felt useless.

Jessi Hempel:

Well, and there's one other piece that I found fascinating about this, which is that you were familiar with this community, sometimes people would come into the courthouse that you actually knew.

Judge Victoria Pratt:

Right?

Jessi Hempel:

Angel, Ms. Elsie's daughter.

Judge Victoria Pratt:

Oh, my God, you got to go, you got to go. Yes, Miss Elsie's daughter in this community, or people who had served when I was serving as the municipal council. So, knowing and seeing them in their fullness, but knowing that people are more than enact, knowing that people are more than just this one thing that happened, but we also negate who we are.

So, I bring all my experience is when I show up, right. And so, one of the problems I think that many judges have, and many people who are in a position of authority is that when they show up to leadership, they forget all of the good stuff that was put in them.

They forget all of the good experiences that they had, and they behave another way. And one of the things I told folks, I said, "Listen, I can get out of trouble that I caused for myself, but I can't get out of trouble that I cause acting like someone else."

So, if I have an understanding of a community, that's what I'm supposed to bring. If you're a leader and you're kind and insightful and can read people, you're supposed to bring that to your style of leadership, because that's what helps you move organization forward, that helps you use all the jewels and nuggets that are in you.

But too often, we, we don't value those things. So, I valued that my parents taught me to treat people with dignity and respect, because I also saw how people didn't treat them, so I brought that with me to the bench. Now, people are like, "Oh, why is that important? Why is that important?"

Because the law requires for you to give people orders and for those orders to be obeyed. And they can't be obeyed if people don't see you as a legitimate authority. Again, in leadership, if people don't see you as a legitimate authority to impose rules and regulations, they don't do them. That's why people leave your meetings and go back to doing whatever the heck they were doing before.

Jessi Hempel:

Let's see out here. Judge Pratt is talking about judges in a courtroom, but she's also talking about any leaders. Why do you respect the authority anyone else around you has? And how do you convey authority yourself? I want you to really think about this question as you listen.

Judge Victoria Pratt:

I didn't know that I was doing this thing because I was treating people with dignity and respect, and they would come back, and they would do the things that I would ask them to do. And they would help themselves by doing those things.

And then, someone came to see me in court and they look like, "Is this is how you naturally behave?" There's research on this thing in the way you engage in court, and it's called procedural justice.

And this concept that says that if people are treated with dignity and respect and fairly by the justice system, not only will they comply with court orders, the obey the law, which means you reduce crime, but they're also... they trust the system and it also reduces crime.

And I was like, "Oh, okay." But there was research and I'm curious. So, obviously, so I started looking at this. And so, there are these four things that you do with procedural justice. And I gotta tell you, I use procedural justice in everything, even you know, in my relationships, you know, first one is voice, making sure people have an opportunity to tell their story.

And voice as simple as just telling them when you're not gonna let them to speak but letting people speak. Sometimes, we're going through so quickly, particularly in the justice system, where we're just processing moving calendars that people never get an opportunity to speak.

And I found there was so much information, meaningful information lost when I didn't let people speak or um, you know, the example of this young woman who came through who was a high school student, and she got picked up on a, an unlawful weapons charge.

We found out it was like a kitchen knife when... they finally downgraded and sent her to us. And fortunately, we had a Newark Youth Court, and is a restorative justice process. We sent her there. And when she came back to read her essay, she says, "Judge, I never meant to hurt anyone. I just am scared. I'm scared all the time. And I sleep with my knife under my pillow."

And I missed it in court, like I heard her say it. But later I went home, and because my work is a mission and my assignment, I keep hearing things. And I called someone I said, "Find out why this child was sleeping with this knife underneath her pillow."

And we found out that her mother's boyfriend had been molesting her. Now, this girl walked into a school every day where there were police officers, who the only time they noticed her or heard her was when they found this knife in her pocketbook and processed her.

Jessi Hempel:

Yup.

Judge Victoria Pratt:

But she never felt enough trust to have voice to tell them that this thing was going on. And so, that to me, is like really what's meaningful about giving people because you learn so much more than what's just in front of you and what your own mind can see.

Jessi Hempel:

So, this gets to, let's call it your signature move, Judge Pratt (laughs). You assign essays.

Judge Victoria Pratt:

I assign essays.

Jessi Hempel:

More often than not.

Judge Victoria Pratt:

Yes.

Jessi Hempel:

That is not the first thing that would occur to me where I ended up position (laughs). So, how did you come up with this? And where does it fit into your practice?

Judge Victoria Pratt:

So, I saw that there was a judge who assigned essays and he put them in the drawer, he would read them and put them in the drawer, but they really allow people to have some autonomy, and I guess his agency. And I believe that people know how to heal themselves.

It's just getting to it. And sometimes, the voices of all the things that are around you, they're so loud you can't get to it. So, again, these are people who are marginalized, who because of racism no one hears them, because of illness no one hears them.

And you say, "I wanna hear your side of this." And they would write these incredible essays. And it would be amazing to me what people would pour into them. And I'd sit there and listen and nod, I'm like, "Wow." Usually, when I first started giving these essays out, they would start with anger, "Oh, I don't know why, Judge Pratt asked me to write this stupid essay."

And then, they'd go on. And then, by the end of the essay, they'd answer the question. So, if the question is, if I knew then what I know now, how would my life be different? Well, if you're an addict, you are running on that hamster wheel dealing with the same question over and over.

So, the thing that if you had known then can help you now, or one of my favorites, which was a really tough one is if I believe one positive thing about myself, how would my life be different? The essay was important. But what was more important was that for two weeks before they came back to court, they were thinking about positive attributes of themselves.

And who's doing that? Who's doing that in the midst of poverty? Who's doing that in the midst of abuse? And they come back and they just write these things. So, even when folks said to me, "Well, how could you ask these people to do that?"

I'm like, "Look, think about how little I would have to think of a person to not give them... to think they don't have the right to express themselves and not give them the opportunity to do it." So, essays were fantastic because of that. And sometimes, people would say things in court that you would be able to mostly correct, like that's not true about you.

That is not the case. And so, they just became powerful but they also became (laughs)... that thing that people were like, "Oh, no, no, no, I'm not gonna go see Judge Pratt, she likes to make people write essays." I'm like, "You might go to jail." (laughs) But really holding folks accountable, because once they've processed something, they can't come back from that.

They now know this positive thing. And then, my favorite thing was everyone clapping for them, right. And so, it's the first time somebody claps for you. And I started to notice that people would bring relatives, almost like a graduation, because they were proud of this thing that they had done.

And I'm thinking, "My God, this is an essay in a courtroom, in a place that you're going to for punishment, and you bring people there because this judge sees you and the staff sees you. And people are gonna clap for you and you want them to see that."

Jessi Hempel:

Judge Pratt introduced four aspects to procedural justice. The second involves how you comport yourself.

Judge Victoria Pratt:

So, when ensuring that people feel that they're treated with dignity and respect, and fairly, neutrality is paramount, people have to believe that the process is neutral. And this is often difficult for judges or people in authority who believe that they are behaving with neutrality, but the person who's receiving it has to see it and feel it.

And so, it requires a constant ego check. I think that anytime you're in a position of leadership or have some institutional authority over people, it requires constantly checking the ego. So, neutrality is how you treat everyone.

Jessi Hempel:

I wanna just take a pause on the matter of ego. I felt like your book could have a second subhead called Combating the Ego, because there were so many moments in your book that hinge on somebody and not always you, some court officer or police officer, taking a step back from the moment that they were triggered to let their own ego speak and, um, and throttling their ego.

Judge Victoria Pratt:

Yes.

Jessi Hempel:

I, I understand that maybe you can get to the point where you do that as a leader. But how do you compel others to do that in a system that encourages them to do just the opposite?

Judge Victoria Pratt:

Well, if you are a leader, it's your responsibility to make sure people are checking their egos. And so, one of the things that we're afraid to do when we are in positions of leadership is ensuring that.

Jessi Hempel:

Yeah.

Judge Victoria Pratt:

Right? So, there's a prosecutor in your courtroom and they're behaving disrespectfully, is checking that.

Jessi Hempel:

Yeah.

Judge Victoria Pratt:

"Madam prosecutor, I can hear you from over here. That's not how we talk to people in my courtroom." Right?

Jessi Hempel:

Checking that publicly-

Judge Victoria Pratt:

Publicly.

Jessi Hempel:

... in front of all the people there, yeah.

Judge Victoria Pratt:

Because you expect me to check a defendant who comes and behaves disrespectfully-

Jessi Hempel:

Mm-hmm.

Judge Victoria Pratt:

... but I am the ultimate authority in that courtroom. Again, we're on this idea of neutrality. And neutrality is also that, it's making sure that everyone gets the same level of treatment.

So, if everyone in this space has to behave respectfully, that means that the judge has to be careful, "Oh, where's my prosecutor?" You know, that's the prosecutor. They don't work for you. They're not yours. "Where's my police officer?" No, that's the executive branch.

And really respecting who you are, again, this idea that the ego and we're seeing it, we're seeing it, we just saw it in this last killing. We just, we saw it. No one said, "Stop."

Jessi Hempel:

Yeah.

Judge Victoria Pratt:

This is about unleashing this wrath of violence on this person and no one said, "Well, whoa, stop. This is not right."

Jessi Hempel:

Right.

Judge Victoria Pratt:

Right?

Jessi Hempel:

Right.

Judge Victoria Pratt:

Because the ego was like, "Oh, no, I'm down with them." So, they have some authority over this person's body, or they believe they do so that they can behave this way. And-

Jessi Hempel:

Here you are talking... just for our listeners who may listen to it in the month, right?

Judge Victoria Pratt:

Mm-hmm.

Jessi Hempel:

Here, you're talking about the atrocious events in Memphis.

Judge Victoria Pratt:

Amen. That's exactly what I'm talking about. What happened to the person who was opposed to stop that? So, when I started doing this stuff, people thought, "Uh, that's the new judge, she's nuts. She don't even know what she's doing, talking to these people." And I would hear them on... because they wouldn't be on the bench talking about me, right?

Jessi Hempel:

Right.

Judge Victoria Pratt:

But I had a note on the bench that said, "Stay focused on the goal, no matter what's happening." And I know that the only way you change people's minds is getting the outcomes and the results that I wanted.

And so, when new officers would come in they'd be like, "Oh, oh, this is how Judge Pratt runs our court. Oh, oh, oh, this is Judge Pratt does... don't yell." And being able to say from the bench, "Officer, the only person who gets to holler in this courtroom is me. You wanna speak to that person, go over there and talk to them." Right?

Now, what does that say to the people who are sitting in the courtroom? "Wow, the judge just checked the officer. So, she treats everybody the same in this space." Like, there's nothing worse than a coward in a position of power, because they won't do the right thing when it's required, which is all the time. And so, it was a little space.

It was a little chord. I was given these but I was like, "I'm gonna do the right thing until they tell me to go home. And when they tell me to go home, I'll go do something else but it won't be the end of who I am."

Jessi Hempel:

Right.

Judge Victoria Pratt:

And so, that's this whole idea of neutrality of like, what do people see when you're... when you behave from this position of authority. Who is influencing your decisions when you are speaking here?

Jessi Hempel:

But I wanna just point out, there was, there's a... it's a subtlety to this, which is that there were also moments on the bench where you talked about people who didn't disrespect you in your courtroom.

Judge Victoria Pratt:

Mm-hmm.

Jessi Hempel:

And you understood that there was a possibility that there might be something underlying that, that you needed to look for. I wanna know as an authority-

Judge Victoria Pratt:

Mm-hmm.

Jessi Hempel:

... how do you know when the moment is for you to make that call and say, "Hey, Ms. prosecutor, please don't speak to me that way."

Judge Victoria Pratt:

Mm-hmm.

Jessi Hempel:

Or to step back and say, "Maybe there's something underneath that, that I can't see."

Judge Victoria Pratt:

Well, you have to train yourself to see and to hear, right? And so, when something just doesn't seem right, it's usually not. It's usually not. And so, I also know what my triggers are, I know what makes me angry. And I know when I'm beginning to feel it, I start to feel hot, and my face gets hot.

And I'm like, "Whoa, whoa." That's when I know. But I also have rules for myself. If I ever had to go before a committee and explain why I did something and the answer is because they pissed me off, I had to undo it. And so, it's observing, it's really taking the time to see like, "This doesn't really make sense that this person is behaving this way."

I mean, one of my guys, he thought he was a pirate, we had social workers in Newark Community Solutions, which we'll talk about later. And every time he came to court, he sat in the front row as if he was in-charge of the ship. And one day, he came late and the officer would not let him sit in the seat, someone was sitting there.

And he was literally physically pushing the officer to get to the front of the room. And I was like, "Wow, this is really odd." And then, I thought, "Oh, oh, mental illness." And there's something about his identity in that front row. And so, I stopped what I was doing.

And I said to them, "Let him come, let him have a seat." 'And somebody was sitting there. I said, "Move over, you got to move over." Because it was important for this person with mental illness to be able to get through this court session with this.

So, I had to, one, not be angry that he was disrupting what it was I was doing. And that also, I had to intervene so that the officer knew that it was okay that he was not following his orders, which were, you can't go to the front but I was like, "No, let him go." because there's something there that we don't initially know about.

Real authority doesn't have to constantly slam and hurt you, you know? And that's what the justice system is obsessed with, just smashing people. And the reality is, I want someone to do things because they don't want to disappoint me.

And that very quickly became the case, it very quickly became officers would stop people in the streets and like, "Oh, no, no, no, no, don't give me that ticket, because I'm in Judge Pratt's program, and she's gonna kill me." And I'm thinking, "Judge Pratt's not going to kill you."

But they didn't wanna disappoint me, because they had to establish a rapport where I respected them, I'm gonna trust you to do what you said you're gonna do. And when you're out there, you're on Judge Pratt's release. So, people are talking about me when you're out there.

And so, it's this constant, again, this checking of the ego, but really thinking deeply about why would this person behave this way, not normal behavior. It's not rational behavior, and knowing your community.

If you know that you serve in the community that people live under the constant, constant threat of violence, do you know what that person had to do to get to the courthouse, to get to the office on that day?

Jessi Hempel:

We're gonna take a quick break here. When we come back, more on procedural justice with Judge Victoria Pratt. And we're back. We're halfway through Judge Pratt's tenets of procedural justice, she's urged us to make sure that people feel their voices are heard. And she's imparted upon us the importance of staying neutral to all parties. Now, that brings us to number three, everyone must understand.

Judge Victoria Pratt:

People have the right to understand the process, understand what's required of them, and understand most importantly, the consequences of not doing what they're supposed to do, or the consequences of violating this law, the consequences of not taking your medication.

Every time you're off your meds, you throw a rock at the store, there's a consequence for that, so we need to get you connected to services so that we can deal with that. The consequence of dropping out of high school is that most people who are in prison don't have a high school diploma, so you just checked off, the first thing for us to send you there.

The municipal court helps you build what I call an, affectionally, your resume. So, when you get a superior court case, they have enough of these low-level offenses to give you a prison sentence.

This is not unimportant because it's municipal court. It's very important because it's gonna determine whether or not you get work, what kind of work, what kind of license you can get. And so, what we do at this law level and how quickly we, we are to convict people at this level?

So, but that's me, I have to be thinking about this, "Madam Prosecutor, do you know if this person went to high school? You just gave them an offer of this? Does this person have a high school diploma? Does this person have a job?" Answer all those questions before you give me an offer, because that means you haven't looked at everything.

You, "Defense counsel, do you know your client? Did they graduate from high school?" Yeah, your case is not ready, have a seat until it is. Don't come talking to me about, "Oh, he was hanging out with the wrong crowd." I always hear about the wrong crowd, but only person I have here is your client, right?

So, it's, it's constantly making sure people understand. Do they speak English? What I know about people who don't speak English as their first language they'd be in court? Uh-huh. Yes, yes, yes. And then, I slip a question in there. You don't... no, you need a translator. Have a seat until we can get a translator.

It requires me to slow down, it requires me to speak in plain English. You go into court and people are like, "Wow, what just happened here?" And it happens to them. They leave. And then, when they come back and haven't complied with the things that we asked them to do, we punish them, but we haven't told them anything.

Jessi Hempel:

Right. And we haven't enrolled them in being able to hear it.

Judge Victoria Pratt:

No, not at all.

Jessi Hempel:

This brings us to the fourth and final aspect of procedural justice, respect.

Judge Victoria Pratt:

Respect. And respect one thinks is the easiest. So, you know, when people say to me, "Oh, you know, dignity, that's something hokey to write about." when you talk about the criminal justice system, because the criminal justice system doesn't concern itself with dignity, and that's a lie.

Because dignity is one of the most important things that it concerns itself with. And the reason we know it is because it's the first thing we strip a person of when they engage or encounter the criminal justice system. You don't feel like a full human being anymore, you don't get to speak, you don't get to explain.

You don't get to do anything other than sit there and silent and pray that someone hasn't had a bad day. It's what we do when we hold people, the conditions that we leave them in. There's a book called, um, (laughs) The Processes is the Punishment.

So, whether you're guilty or innocent, the process is punishment, how you go through the criminal justice system, before you even get to say, guilty or not guilty or get found guilty or not guilty or have your case dismissed. How do I restore your dignity after I've mistreated you the entire time, and then found out at the end, "Oh, this case is boundless, oh, this goes away."

You've already been disrespected, that we can't give you back. And then, we don't get to punish you until we get to fine... until you get adjudicated guilty, but we just punish you throughout the entire process. So, dignity is very important to the justice system.

So, this idea of respect is how we speak to people as to whether we see them or not as that person... when the persons coming up to the bench and they're limping in you know they're compelled to be there. Why does it take anything away from me to let that person sit while I do whatever I'm going to do?

It does nothing. What it does is it tells you that I'm acknowledging their humanity and that this person is injured right now, and that they can't stand while I'm doing whatever it is I'm supposed to do. And so, when I started to see the officers pull out chairs, people would come out in custody, and they'd pull a chair for them to sit.

Yeah, that's what you're supposed to do. That's what you're supposed to do. You don't get to determine whether they're guilty or not right now. All you're dealing with is the humanity of the person who's before us. And you're treating them respectfully.

And so, respectfully is also understanding that the person might be suffering from a disability, literacy might not be able to read. So, how do we deal with that in a way that the person still walks out of here and has their self-respect, they can still feel.

Because this idea of respect is that we strip people of their dignity and respect. They no longer feel like they can be productive and contributing members of society, right? We've made them less than. They already feel less than coming into the system because of all of the social ills that they deal with poverty, poorly educated, and then we come into the justice system and then we compound that.

And that's just not my job. It's not our job as the system. Our job is to deliver justice one way or the other. But we get caught up in all these other things that we think are supposed to be president in the process, and they're not.

Jessi Hempel:

Well, so, that brings us to Community Solutions.

Judge Victoria Pratt:

Newark Community Solutions. Yes. Our community court program.

Jessi Hempel:

Tell us the story of how that came to exist and what it does.

Judge Victoria Pratt:

Oh, so, when now, Senator Cory Booker became the mayor. In Newark, he brought in this wave of criminal justice reform and really believe the Newarkers deserve better than they were getting. And we partnered with the Center for Court Innovation. They're now the Center for Justice Innovation.

And what they did was that they came in and they partnered with the City of Newark and the judiciary and went around in the neighborhood meetings to say, "What do you want justice to look like for your community?" Much to my surprise, folks didn't come back and say, "We want those drug dealers to get stiffer sentences."

"We want those drug addicts to get stiffer sentences." They said, "We want those boys on a corner, those folks on the corner selling drugs to have jobs. We want those drug addicts who are breaking into our house, we want them to get drug treatment." Right?

Because what they wanted was to restore the people, the humans in their community back. Because what was happening was that they were already getting punishment from the justice system but it wasn't changing their behavior when they came back.

It didn't make them full human beings when they came back to their community to work and do all the other things. And again, these were their community members-

Jessi Hempel:

Seeing their kids-

Judge Victoria Pratt:

Their kids, their friends. Absolutely, absolutely. And so, we partnered with the Center for Justice Innovation and came up with a north Community Solutions community court program that would now allow a person to get punishment with assistance.

So, a person who would otherwise immediately get jail would now get social services that included group therapy, individual therapy, community service, and pairing them with nonprofit organizations that already existed in the community to get the services that they needed.

And the community service was meaningful community service now. So, now, you could do community service at a church sweeping up, sweeping around, you could go work at a food bank that you could subsequently go to, or serve at a soup kitchen.

So, here's somebody who's been told they don't have anything to give. And then, they wake up, and then they go put in their hours at the soup kitchen. And then, we will get rid of the money that they owed, or the case might get dismissed as a result of these things. But now, they would be on track to getting better.

Jessi Hempel:

You told me this story. No, you didn't tell me that story. You told it to me in my head because I listened to your book (laughs). And it really stayed with me about, uh, a panhandler who shouldn't have been hand handling by any logical standards because he received benefits, he had place to live.

Judge Victoria Pratt:

Mm-hmm.

Jessi Hempel:

He was raising a teenager. And yet, he was out there doing it.

Judge Victoria Pratt:

Yes. And I was so angry with him. Because I'm like, "Why do you keep coming here? He would get like 10 blue tickets. He had a traumatic brain injury. He had gotten robbed in the city.

And so, he was like, maybe behaved at the age of a 12-year-old. And he said, "My 12-year-old son goes through our food stamps really fast. And I thought, "My goodness." Feeding his son because he didn't have any drug charges. He was feeding a growing boy. And for those of you who have them-

Jessi Hempel:

They eat a lot. (laughs) They eat a lot.

Judge Victoria Pratt:

Right?

Jessi Hempel:

They eat a lot.

Judge Victoria Pratt:

They eat a lot.

Jessi Hempel:

Yeah.

Judge Victoria Pratt:

Right? And so, something is normal as feeding, a growing boy requires him to panhandle.

Jessi Hempel:

Yup.

Judge Victoria Pratt:

But he gets his consequence, is facing 30 days of jail on each one of those blue tickets he gets, and there's a lot of them. So, when the prosecutor gets some, she's pissed. "I'm upset because you're back here." And so, we send him to do his community service. And he doesn't have the capacity to work because he's an adult with serious traumatic brain injury. And it took him about a year to learn how to speak again.

Jessi Hempel:

Yeah.

Judge Victoria Pratt:

And now, he goes to this place, it's a food bank, and he helps prepare these bags of foods for others. But now, he knows I can go here and I can get groceries, I can literally get food in my community and not have to panhandle.

Jessi Hempel:

It occurs to me as you speak how you can lift the framework that we spoke about today-

Judge Victoria Pratt:

Mm-hmm.

Jessi Hempel:

... and lay it upon any organization or any...

Judge Victoria Pratt:

Any.

Jessi Hempel:

... institution in which leadership is required.

Judge Victoria Pratt:

Yes. And it should be a priority. Treating people with dignity and respect should be a priority at any institution that you work in, any institution that people have to be served or that, uh, there or there's an output, this idea that you see the humanity in the people who come to your company, and they spend more time with you than they do with their families.

And so, what happens when you have a toxic environment is that you strip the dignity of the people who come there to serve as your product, to put your product into the world who have a community because you are paying them, but all of that you're responsible for.

So, we are responsible for toxic environments and dealing with them, right, because they grow and fester in places aren't, aren't being treated. And so, yes, if you make sure people are heard. Even if you're not gonna take their advice, listen to them, let them speak, treat them with neutrality.

Jessi Hempel:

Okay, so my last question for you-

Judge Victoria Pratt:

Yes ma'am.

Jessi Hempel:

... Judge Pratt, our entire year-

Judge Victoria Pratt:

Mm-hmm.

Jessi Hempel:

... theme is devoted to optimism, pragmatic optimism.

Judge Victoria Pratt:

Yes.

Jessi Hempel:

So, personal question, do you consider yourself an optimist?

Judge Victoria Pratt:

I do, but I also consider myself a realist. I believe what I see and what the world has taught me. What I've seen is that when we consciously make an effort to treat people as if they're full humans with rights, it changes not only their behavior, but most importantly, it changes you. It changes you. And then, you go on to improve. So, yeah, I'm an optimist, but I know it works.

Jessi Hempel:

That was Judge Victoria Pratt, Executive Director of Odyssey Impact. We'll link in the show notes to her book, her nonprofit and to her TED Talk, check them all out. And come to office hours this week, we'll go live again from LinkedIn news page at 3:00 P.M. Eastern.

This week, we'll talk about the episode and we'll talk about procedural justice, how it applies to our own circumstances, our offices, our families, our communities. If you need help finding us, always feel free to email us at [email protected], and we'll send you a link.

If you enjoyed the show, leave us a review. Anywhere you listen, it really helps people find us, we appreciate it so much, so much that I love to invite our producer Sarah Storm to join us every once in a while, and share one. If I haven't read yours on the show, drop me a line at [email protected], I'll send you six months of LinkedIn premium. Anyhow. Hey, Sarah.

Sarah Storm:

Hi, Jessi.

Jessi Hempel:

So, Sarah, we've got a great one today and you're about to learn why I chose it. Will you read it?

Sarah Storm:

Sure. This one is from Will Asby who says, "I've been listening to the show for the past two years. I've always enjoyed the journey. Great guests, great host and also great guest hosts like Sarah storm. I've enjoyed it all. Please keep up the good work. I always learned so much."

Jessi Hempel:

Sarah is a great guest host, isn't she? Sarah?

Sarah Storm:

Thank you.

Jessi Hempel:

Hey, thanks, Will Asby, I agree. It's great when Sarah guest hosts. If you haven't heard her episode with Guillermo del Toro, check it out. And now, Hello Monday is a production of LinkedIn News. Sarah Storm produces our show. It's engineered by Assaf Gidron, Rafa Farihah, Wallace Truesdale, Kaniya Rogers, Michaela Greer, and Victoria Taylor are the beating heart of our production community.

Joe DiGiorgi mixes our show. Courtney Coupe is Head of Original Programming. Dave pond is Head of News Production. Our theme music was composed just for us by the mysterious Brakemaster Cylinder. Dan Roth is the Editor-in-Chief of LinkedIn. I'm Jessi Hempel, we'll be back next Monday. Thanks for listening.