mEET aLEX

When I started out in the criminal justice field in the late 1990s, I had hopes of counseling adolescents and chairing a parole board one day. Would you believe, both of those dreams came true? Though the parole board would take two more decades, a company called Third Way in Denver brought me on board right away. I thought I could do that job forever; helping kids who had experienced trauma. Problem is, the longer I worked in the role of counselor, the more I saw how many other large-scale opportunities there were to help, so my career followed a winding path.

• Earned my Master’s degree from John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, and while there, I had many incredible experiences at Riker’s Island, in the Bronx doing gang outreach, and working in a harm reduction clinic.

• In NYC and after my return to Denver, I was involved with a crisis intervention training program for law enforcement officers and worked with adults going through reentry (entering or remaining successfully in the community after imprisonment) both in residential settings and in the community.

• Earned my Ph.D. at Colorado State University and researched the expanding definition of dosage, or how much of specific interventions are needed to support people in getting out and staying out of the system. My findings showed tremendous promise for the work of community corrections practitioners to include support for providing multiple interventions (both cognitive-behavioral and otherwise), for increasing overall clinical dosage hours (which could be cognitive-behavioral or not), and that case management was a promising practice for long-term outcomes.

• Implemented statewide initiatives both big and small. This included being responsible for supporting 32 programs statewide in change work, being evidence-based programming director for a few residential facilities, and many other opportunities to be involved with, and lead, organizational change.

• Joined the Colorado Board of Parole, eventually transitioning to the position of Vice-Chair. That’s right. My 18-year-old self had reached her goal!

The career path I’ve chosen has been difficult. Performance plans, coaching opportunities, community programs, strategic alliances, good ideas, bad ideas, more money, less money, more people, fewer people, statutory changes, political mandates. You get the idea. At times I have felt frustrated. At times, offended. There are so many people working hard to do good work, yet they don’t get the credit they deserve nor create the impact they strive for.

Many people are on the losing side of the criminal legal system. And those on the periphery tend to point fingers.

That’s one of the reasons I co-founded the Alliance for Community and Justice Innovation in 2017 and ultimately stepped down from my appointed position on the Parole Board in 2019 to dedicate myself to the work. Together with my partners, we are working with organizations to effectively innovate in the justice space using the science of implementation as our guide.

Here, through my work as a justice advocate and speaker, I’ve chosen to share my experiences and learnings with those outside the criminal and community justice systems to show how all of us, together, can support those with lived experience and those doing the work on the front lines of prisons, residential facilities, courts, and mental health organizations. If you want to make your legislative change a winner, better understand the system, or get inspired to engage or re-engage in this critical work, I can provide you with the insights you need and the course of action to get it done effectively.