Outstanding justice skilled Nancy La Vigne has been appointed director of the nation’s pivotal company in command of spearheading new crime analysis.
La Vigne, who most not too long ago served as a senior fellow on the Council on Legal Justice and director of the Council’s Process Pressure on Policing, will head the Nationwide Institute of Justice (NIJ), the analysis arm of the Workplace of Justice Applications on the Division of Justice.
The NIJ, which funds bodily and social science analysis, growth and analysis tasks in all fields of legal justice, awarded greater than $3.7 billion in undertaking and analysis grants in 2021. The funds supported greater than 7,000 analysis tasks and scholarships.
La Vigne’s appointment comes at a time when the political local weather in favor of justice reform has turned chilly on account of the nationwide surge in violent crime. Whereas analysis has made clear that reforms in sentencing and bail have had little or no influence on the crime rise, evidence-based analysis has taken on much more significance, reform advocates agree.
Nancy La Vigne
“All through her distinguished profession, Nancy La Vigne has devoted her huge expertise to bridging the divide between researchers, practitioners and policymakers, serving to justice system professionals apply science and information to our nation’s most urgent public security challenges,” Assistant Lawyer Common Amy L. Solomon, Principal Deputy of the Workplace of Justice Applications (OJP), stated in a press release asserting the appointment.
“We shall be lucky to depend on her exceptional potential to translate information to apply within the service of safer communities and a extra simply and equitable society.”
La Vigne, whose experience ranges from policing and corrections reform to reentry, legal justice applied sciences and evidence-based legal justice practices, beforehand served as Vice President of Justice Coverage on the City Institute, a nonprofit social coverage analysis group based mostly in Washington, D.C.
From 2014 to 2016, she served as govt director of the congressionally mandated bipartisan Charles Colson Process Pressure on Federal Corrections Reform.
La Vigne has additionally served as a panelist and moderator at occasions organized by the Middle on Media Crime and Justice at John Jay School, writer of The Crime Report—most not too long ago on the March 3-4 Harry Frank Guggenheim Symposium on Crime in America, the place she moderated a panel on the way forward for policing reform.
Earlier in her profession, La Vigne was the founding director of the Crime Mapping Analysis Middle.
She holds a bachelor’s diploma from Smith School, a grasp’s in public affairs from the Lyndon B. Johnson Faculty of Public Affairs on the College of Texas-Austin, and a doctorate from the Faculty of Legal Justice at Rutgers, The State College of New Jersey.
Editor’s Word: The video of the panel might be accessed right here.
She has additionally written for The Crime Report. See “5 Misconceptions About Police Reform,” August 13, 2021
La Vigne assumes the helm of the NIJ Could 9, changing Dr. Jennifer Scherer, who has served because the Institute’s appearing director since January 2021 and can resume her position because the workplace’s principal deputy director.
