2020-06-15
1 小时 8 分钟My guest today, Judge Victoria Pratt, grew up just outside of Newark, New Jersey, and repeatedly found herself in the role of translator and advocate and champion, not infrequently for her own family at a very young age.
And this profound sense of empathy and empowerment, along with a deep desire to really serve at the sweet spot of justice, is it never left her.
She eventually ended up going to law school, then rising up through the worlds of government and education.
She would eventually become the chief judge in Newark's municipal court.
But she was not your ordinary judge.
For her, it was all about serving the broader humanity and needs, both of those who appeared before her in her courtroom, as well as those who were affected in the community.
And Judge Pratt gained acclaim as a champion for an approach that's become known as restorative justice, which is focused not on retribution and even goes beyond the sort of traditional notions of rehabilitation.
It's about a larger restoration that involves both the individual and the community and recognizes the larger, more systemic issues that so often lead people into her courtroom.
So now, as a professor at Rutgers Law School, she teaches problem solving justice and restorative justice.
She also champions criminal justice reform through her consulting firm, Pratt Lucien Consultants.
And she speaks to leaders of institutions and organizations about how to really heighten and restore respect into their day to day operations so that their mission can be better achieved as well.
Judge Pratt brings such a powerful, deeply human lens to equality and justice that is needed now more than ever.
So excited to share this best of conversation with you today.
I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is good life project.
My curiosity is when you grow up just outside of New York City with parents who literally have to sort of learn how to navigate different worlds, the southern part of the country, and then New York City, profoundly different experiences, almost becoming multi literate in different cultures.
And then you at a really young age, start to observe all these differences in justice and in the way that people sort of live and see this need for change and decide that you want to play a role in that change.
Is that a process that unfolds just kind of slowly over time for you?
Or was there something more like a moment or something that happened that really awakened this in you?
I think it grew out of necessity, you know, being the firstborn child of an immigrant.
Immigrant children have to be multilingual and also have to learn systems quickly.