Presidential Leadership Scholars Tackle Reentry from the Criminal Justice System
Scholar Spotlight: How Judge Scott Schlegel is improving his community
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 67.8% of released prisoners in 2005 from 30 states were arrested for a new crime within 3 years, and 76.6% were arrested within 5 years. Judge Scott Schlegel believes these statistics are unacceptable and that it is our responsibility to do everything within our power to prepare those under community supervision for the challenges ahead. According to Judge Schlegel, if we reimagine the criminal justice system by implementing smarter supervision models and using existing, inexpensive technologies, we may be able to increase public safety, reduce recidivism rates, and become more efficient with the limited resources available.
To this end, Judge Schlegel presides over two Smart Supervision criminal justice projects; Reentry Court and Swift & Certain Probation.
Recently he visited the Harlem Reentry Court to learn more and met up with fellow Scholar and friend, Lucy Lang, special counsel for policy and projects and executive director of the DANY Academy at the New York City District Attorney’s Office.
Lucy and Scott are 2 of 240 Presidential Leadership Scholars, all of whom were accepted into the program because of their passion to positively impact lives through their work, and are now applying lessons learned, from others and each other, to increase that impact.
For more information on Judge Schlegel and his work, please visit https://www.smartsupervision.us/
For more information on the Presidential Leadership Scholars program, please visit our website and follow us on Twitter @PLSprogram
