Sunny Schwartz

Sunny Schwartz is a nationally recognized expert in criminal justice reform who has devoted her three-decade career to changing traditional incarceration and reentry from idle wasted time to integrating programs designed to foster accountability, victim empathy and restoration for all impacted by crime.

She founded Resolve to Stop the Violence Project (RSVP), the in 1997 for the San Francisco Sheriff's Department. RSVP brings together victims and offenders in a unique correctional program that empowers victims and requires offenders to take true responsibility for their actions and eliminate their violent behavior. RSVP has cut recidivism for violent re-arrests by up to 80%.

As well, she is the founder of Five Keys Charter School in 2003, the first in the nation Charter High School for incarcerated and post-release adults.

Both RSVP and Five Keys won the prestigious “Innovations in America Government Award,” sponsored by Harvard‘’s Kennedy School of Government and the Ash Institute.

Schwartz, RSVP, and the Five Keys initiatives have been featured on national and international television including the Oprah Winfrey Show, PBS, Larry King Live, and numerous national and international radio and publications.

Schwartz is the author of Dreams from the Monster Factory: A Tale of Prison, Redemption, and One Woman's Fight to Restore Justice to All. It tells the true story of Schwartz's extraordinary work in the criminal justice system and how her profound belief in people's ability to change is transforming the San Francisco jails and the criminals incarcerated there. With an immediacy made possible by a 27-year career, Schwartz immerses the audience in the troubling and complex realities of U.S. jails, the monster factories -- places that foster violence, rage and, ultimately, better criminals. But by working in the monster factories, Schwartz also discovered her dream of a criminal justice system that empowers victims and reforms criminals.