Executive Director: Lael Elizabeth Hiam Chester became the third Executive Director of CfJJ in March 2001, following five years of services on CfJJ’s Board of Directors. Lael is a graduate of Barnard College and Harvard Law School. Her prior work experience includes both litigating and researching juvenile justice, criminal justice and civil rights issues. She has held positions as the Albert Martin Sacks Clinical Fellow at the Criminal Justice Institute at Harvard Law School and as an Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights/Civil Liberties Division of the Massachusetts Office of the Attorney General. She received the Jay D. Blitzman Youth Advocacy Award in May 2004 for her extraordinary commitment to protecting the rights of juveniles as well as the Women of Justice Award from the Women’s Bar Association and Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly in December 2009. In June 2011 the Robert F. Kennedy Children’s Action Corps honored her with its Embracing the Legacy award. She currently serves as a member of the Governor's Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee, serves on its Executive and Grants Review Committees, and chairs its Disproportionate Minority Contact Subcommittee.
cfjjma: CALL YOUR REPS NOW - Vote on Justice for Kids bill this afternoon http://t.co/dVmp3Xx92H
From our newsletter:
Boston Globe supports raising the age: The Boston Globe ran the following editorial on Sunday:
Keep 17-year-olds out of adult prisons APRIL 14, 2013 | Under Massachusetts law, 17-year-olds are treated as adults in the criminal justice system. A sensible effort is underway in the Legislature to raise that age of juvenile jurisdiction to 18.
From Our Blog
- Schools, photo IDs and privacy
- What Every Reader Asks: ‘What’s It Got to Do With Me?’
- Kids in the System
- Teen Prostitution–Criminal Behavior?
Staff
Director of Operations: Gale Munson joined CfJJ in January 2004. She is a graduate of Wellesley College and Harvard Law School. After clerking for the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, she joined the Boston firm of Palmer & Dodge, focusing her practice primarily on commercial real estate transactions. In 1985 she resigned from the firm and devoted the next ten years to family and volunteer projects. From 1996 through April 2003, she worked for the Henry P. Kendall Foundation in Boston as grants administrator and program associate. From 2004 until 2010, in addition to working at Citizens for Juvenile Justice, she worked for The Farm School, an educational farm in Central Massachusetts whose mission is to connect children to the land.
Senior Policy Associate: Naoka Carey joined CfJJ in September 2011. Prior to her work at CfJJ, Naoka worked as the coordinator of the Massachusetts Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth at the Youth Advocacy Department at CPCS. She has worked in private practice as a civil litigator and at a number of organizations serving youth in the juvenile justice and child welfare systems, including the Children's Law Center of Washington, D.C. and the Juvenile Rights Division of the Legal Aid Society in New York. She has also worked as a youth organizer and trainer in Seattle and Boston. Naoka is a graduate of Harvard College and New York University School of Law, where she represented youth in the juvenile justice system as part of the Juvenile Rights Clinic. Prior to attending law school, she received a Master's Degree in Education from Harvard, focusing on adolescent risk and prevention.
Program Associate: Hannah Caporello joined CfJJ in January 2012. She received her B.A. from New York University, where she studied public health and public policy. A New Hampshire native, she has served as a congressional intern for U.S. Senator Edward Kaufman (D-DE) and as a research intern for the New Hampshire Institute for Health Policy and Practice.