Mississippi Juvenile Justice Reformer Named New JPI Executive Director

[Courtesy of JPI] WASHINGTON, DC - The attorney, who drafted, advocated for and helped pass sweeping juvenile de-incarceration legislation in Mississippi has been selected by the Justice Policy Institute's Board of Directors to lead the organization into its next decade. The Justice Policy Institute (JPI), a national public policy institute dedicated to ending society's reliance on incarceration and promoting effective solutions to social problems, announced today that co-founder and Executive Director Jason Ziedenberg will step down and be replaced by Sheila A. Bedi. The transition will take place on January 14, 2008. "We are incredibly excited to have found someone as dynamic, talented and dedicated to JPI's mission as Sheila is," said JPI Board Treasurer, Peter Leone. "Under Sheila's leadership, JPI will continue its work in highlighting the negative consequences associated with society's reliance on incarceration." Bedi is currently the co-director and founder of the Mississippi Youth Justice Project (MYJP), a non-profit public policy and legal advocacy organization dedicated to the reform of Mississippi's juvenile justice system. At MYJP, Bedi drafted and helped win passage of the Mississippi Juvenile Justice Reform Act of 2005, a measure which prohibits the incarceration of first-time non-violent offenders and establishes community-based alternatives to incarceration. Bedi drafted The Mississippi Juvenile Delinquency Prevention Act of 2006 which requires training for juvenile defenders, re-entry planning for formerly incarcerated youth, set standards for juvenile detention centers and helped secure over $7 million for previously unfunded programs and services that will reduce the number of incarcerated children in Mississippi-including wrap-around services and other community-based alternatives. "After years of advocating for children locked-up in our nation's most brutal and notorious prisons, I know that just building 'better' prisons will only perpetuate the cycle of incarceration, compounding our communities' public safety challenges," said Bedi. "JPI's cutting-edge research and advocacy confirms that our nation's over-reliance on incarceration is the greatest civil rights and political crisis of our time. As Executive Director, I look forward to building on JPI's success and contributing to the de-incarceration movement nationwide." Since 1997, the Justice Policy Institute has worked to enhance the public dialog on incarceration through accessible research, public education and communications advocacy. Lawmakers, media, advocates, systems reformers, and the general public rely on JPI's timely analyses. Over the last decade, JPI's research and communication strategies have helped prevent federal laws that would prosecute more youth as adults, and the organization has collaborated with national and state-based campaigns to repeal these laws. JPI has worked to prevent initiatives for longer prison sentences or tougher juvenile justice measures from being enacted at the local, state and federal level. JPI has pursued legislation to divert drug-involved individuals from prison to drug treatment programs in Maryland and California, and has helped reshape public opinion around California's "Three Strikes Laws" and reforms to Maryland's drug sentencing statutes. JPI has elevated the importance of and promoted effective strategies to reduce the number of young people in pre-trial juvenile detention and reduce racial and ethnic disparities in the juvenile justice system. JPI has published more than four dozen policy reports which constitute a "cannon" of work that support reducing the use of incarceration. After a decade of serving in a number of positions at JPI, including three years as Executive Director, Ziedenberg is returning to the West Coast in 2008. "We thank Jason for his tireless work in helping JPI transition into a potent vehicle for de-incarceration work, and for managing the challenging shift of the organization to a new generation of leaders in this field," said Leone.