NCSL Webinar:  Recidivism Reduction and Justice Reinvestment

December 14, 2011

Speaker Biographies 

Ryan S. King
Research Manager
Pew Center on the States
Public Safety Performance Project

Ryan S. King's research specialization is the American criminal justice system, with a concentration on the impact of sentencing and incarceration policies at the state and federal level. Prior to joining the Public Safety Performance Project, Mr. King was a Policy Analyst at The Sentencing Project for eight years, where he authored dozens of publications focused on sentencing and corrections policy.

Research by Mr. King has appeared in Criminology & Public Policy and the Federal Sentencing Reporter. Mr. King has addressed members of the Maryland House of Delegates and the Canadian House of Commons. In addition, Mr. King’s work has been featured in the Associated Press, New York Times, Washington Post, and USA Today and he has appeared on local and national radio programs to discuss sentencing and corrections issues.

Mr. King holds a B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Pittsburgh and a M.S. in Justice, Law, & Society from The American University.

Nancy G. La Vigne, Ph. D.
Director
Justice Policy Center
The Urban Institute

Nancy G. La Vigne is director of the Justice Policy Center at the Urban Institute, where she leads a staff of over 35 researchers and oversees a research portfolio of more than four dozen active projects spanning a wide array of crime, justice, and public safety topics. Before being appointed as director, Dr. La Vigne served for eight years as a senior research associate at the Urban Institute, directing projects on prisoner reentry, crime prevention, and the evaluation of criminal justice technologies.

Prior to joining the Urban Institute, Dr. La Vigne was the founding director of the Crime Mapping Research Center at the National Institute of Justice, the research, technology, and evaluation arm of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). She later served as Special Assistant to the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs within DOJ. She has held positions as research director for the Texas sentencing commission, research fellow at the Police Executive Research Forum, and consultant to the National Council on Crime and Delinquency. Her research interests focus on criminal justice evaluation, prisoner reentry, crime prevention, and the spatial analysis of crime and criminal behavior. She has published widely on these topics, appearing in a variety of scholarly journals and practitioner publications. She testifies frequently before members of Congress on a wide array of criminal justice topics and also serves as a media spokesperson, appearing on NPR's Morning Edition and featured in Atlantic Monthly, the New York Times, and the Chicago Tribune.

J. J. Gentry
Staff Attorney
Senate Judiciary Committee
South Carolina General Assembly

J. J. Gentry is a staff attorney for the South Carolina Senate Judiciary Committee, specializing in the area of criminal law. Mr. Gentry also has served as a staff attorney for the South Carolina Senate Criminal Justice System Task Force and the South Carolina Sentencing Reform Committee, and he currently serves as a staff attorney for the South Carolina Sentencing Reform Oversight Committee. Mr. Gentry drafted South Carolina’s “Omnibus Crime Reduction and Sentencing Reform Act of 2010.”

Douglas Holbrook
Fiscal Analyst
Fiscal Research Division
North Carolina General Assembly

Douglas Holbrook has worked in criminal justice policy development for twenty years in North Carolina. From 1991 to 1994, he was a statistician with the NC Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission, developing the structured sentencing simulation model still in use for projecting impact of sentencing policy, as well as the data protocols for merging the many data bases used by the courts, law enforcement, and corrections systems in the State. After the passage of structured sentencing legislation, Mr. Holbrook moved to the Department of Correction as a planner and evaluator working to implement the provisions of the new sentencing law and to improve operational processes within the Department, working with the Divisions of Prisons, Adult Probation and Parole, and Alcoholism and Chemical Dependency to implement effective offender interventions throughout the Department. After eight years, Mr. Holbrook left to join the Fiscal Research staff of the General Assembly, handling the budgets of the court system, indigent defense services, and the corrections system. Mr. Holbrook was lead analyst on the Justice Reinvestment Act as it proceeded through the legislative process in 2011.