Who We Are / Councils

Methods and Measurement Council

The Methods and Measurement Council comprises some of the brightest and most talented people in the field of criminal justice research and measurement who help revise and ratify MFJ’s measures, which were originally developed by MFJ’s Data Council. Current Methods and Measurement Council members include:

Christopher Fisher
Chief Strategy Officer, Seattle Police Department


Brian Johnson
Professor, Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Maryland, College Park

Jim Parsons
Vice President and Research Director, Vera Institute of Justice, New York

Andres F. Rengifo
Professor, School of Criminal Justice, Rutgers University, Newark

Jessica Saunders
Director of Research, Council for State Governments Justice Center, Austin

Don Stemen, Council Chair
Associate Professor, Chairperson and Director of Sociolegal Studies Minor, Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, Loyola University Chicago

Min Xie
Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Maryland, College Park

Benchmarking Council

The Benchmarking Council is a senior advisory group comprised of well-known and highly respected criminologists, all of whom have had an important impact on criminal justice theory and practice in the past few decades. The group also includes a member who pioneered the field of pain measurement in medicine. The Benchmarking Council vets MFJ’s measures and methodology, but the main focus of their work is on devising ways to help people better understand what the data mean. To this end, they are developing benchmarks MFJ will test with stakeholders across all our states. Current Benchmarking Council members include:

Todd Clear, Council Chair
University Professor, School of Criminal Justice, Rutgers University, Newark


Bob Dworkin
Professor, School of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Rochester, Rochester

Michael Jacobson
Executive Director, Institute for State & Local Governance at the City University of New York

Jim Lynch
Professor and Chair, Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Maryland, College Park

Mona Lynch
Professor and Department Chair, Department of Criminology, School of Ecology, University of California, Irvine

Greg Ridgeway
Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Criminology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

William Sabol
Professor, Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, Georgia Sate University, Atlanta

Cassia Spohn
Foundation Professor and Director of Graduate Programs, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Arizona State University, Phoenix

Policing Council

The Measures for Justice Policing Council is a senior advisory group comprised of some of the most experienced minds in the area of policing in the United States. The MFJ Policing Council provides guidance on the integration of policing measures into MFJ’s platform. Current Policing Council members include:

Art Acevedo
Interim Chief, Aurora Police Department (CO)

Shon F. Barnes
Chief of Police, Madison Police Department (WI)

Jim Burch
President, National Police Foundation

Sylvia Moir
Undersheriff, Marin County Sheriff’s Office

Abdul D. Pridgen
Chief of Police, San Leandro Police Department (CA)

Luther Reynolds
Chief of Police, Charleston Police Department (SC)

Laurie Robinson
Professor of Criminology, Law and Society, George Mason University

Ivonne Roman
Former Chief of Police, Newark Police Department (NJ)

Dennis Rosenbaum
Professor Emeritus of Criminology, Law and Justice, University of Illinois Chicago

Wesley Skogan
Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Science, Northwestern University

Darrel Stephens
Former Chief of Police, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (NC), and former Executive Director, Major Cities Chiefs Association

Perry Tarrant
Law Enforcement Change Consultant, Former Assistant Chief of Special Operations, Seattle Police Department (WA), and former President, National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE)

Clarence Wardell III
Chief Data and Equitable Delivery Officer, ARP Implementation Team, White House Domestic Policy Council

Data Council

The Data Council, established in 2011, was comprised of measurement experts with diverse expertise in the judicial system (experts on the judiciary, the bench, indigent defense, race in the courts, etc.) who helped isolate useful indicators of system performance and from them developed MFJ’s initial set of measures. Data Council members included:

Amy Bach
Chief Executive Officer, Measures for Justice

John Chisholm
District Attorney, Milwaukee County


Derek Coursen
Assistant Vice President, Data Analytics, Jewish Child Care Association, New York

Gipsy Escobar
Director of Product Strategy, Measures for Justice

Margaret A. Gressens
Research Director, North Carolina Office of Indigent Defense Services (IDS), Durham, NC

Ingo Keilitz
Principal, Court Metrics, Williamsburg, VA (former Senior Justice Reform Specialist at the World Bank and former Vice-President of the National Center for State Courts)

Jim Parsons
Vice President and Research Director, Vera Institute of Justice, New York

Don Stemen
Associate Professor, Chairperson and Director of Sociolegal Studies Minor, Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, Loyola University Chicago

Valerie West
Assistant Professor, John Jay College, New York

Advisory Committee

The MFJ Advisory Committee provides crucial strategic guidance for the organization with a particular focus on fundraising and developing a model to expand the Measures and generate revenue.

Josh Knauer
President and CEO of Rhiza, Pittsburgh, PA

Josh Mailman
Philanthropist and Founder of Social Venture Network, New York

Ellen Miller
Cofounder, Sunlight Foundation, Washington, DC

Richard J. Morello
Family Reach Foundation and CND Life Sciences

Lenny Mendonca
Director Emeritus, McKinsey & Company