Jessica Jackson

Last updated
Jessica Jackson
Born
Jessica Hurst

(1982-01-20) January 20, 1982 (age 42)
Alabama
NationalityAmerican
CitizenshipAmerican
Education Santa Clara University School of Law
Occupation(s)Human rights attorney
Activist
Politician
Organization(s) REFORM Alliance
#cut50
American Constitution Society
Children2

Jessica Jackson is an American human rights attorney [1] and Chief Advocacy Officer at REFORM Alliance. [2] She is also the co-founder of Dream Corps JUSTICE, a national bipartisan effort aimed at reducing America's incarceration rate. [3] [2] She served as the youngest mayor of the city of Mill Valley. [2]

Contents

Early life and education

Jackson was raised in Mill Valley, California. [2] She attended Hyde School in Woodstock, CT where she was nominated to the school's inaugural Alumni Hall of Honor in 2016. [4] [5] At age 18, Jackson dropped out of high school and received her GED. [2]

When Jackson was 22, her then-husband was sentenced to six years in prison for a nonviolent drug offense. [2] Jackson had a newborn baby and no job, so she moved in with her mother. [2] Her husband's prison sentence motivated her to go to college and law school so that she could become a lawyer and fight for families like her own. [2]

Jackson received her bachelor's degree in Political Science and English from the Honors College of the University of South Florida. In 2011, she received her J.D. from Santa Clara University School of Law, where she received the Dean's Leadership Award. [6] [7]

Career

Jessica Jackson was elected to the Mill Valley City Council in November 2013, becoming the youngest ever elected official in Marin County. [8] In 2015, she was elected to serve as Mayor of Mill Valley. [2] [9] In addition to her duties on the Mill Valley City Council, Jackson served as Mill Valley's representative to the Association of Bay Area Governments. [10] She also served as a board member of the American Constitution Society Bay Area chapter. [11]

Jackson began her career as a human rights attorney at the Habeas Corpus Resource Center in San Francisco, California, where she represented California death row inmates in their appeals. [12] Jackson met Van Jones during a chance meeting and began talking with him and a law school friend, Matt Haney, about criminal justice reform. [2] Over breakfast they scribbled ideas on a napkin which later led to the formation of #cut50. [2] In 2015, she joined with Jones to co-found #cut50, an organization focused on bipartisan solutions to criminal justice reform issues. [13] [14] [15] [16] While leading her national initiative, #cut50, Jessica helped ban the shackling of jailed pregnant women in 14 states. Her “Dignity for Incarcerated Women” campaign enlisted formerly incarcerated women and dozens of celebrities to deepen the focus on women's issues. [17] At the helm of #cut50, Jessica built the biggest national grassroots network for bipartisan reform, #cut50's Empathy Network. [18]   She also produced the first-ever Bipartisan Criminal Justice Summit, attracting leaders as diverse as Newt Gingrich and then Attorney General Eric Holder. [19] Jackson handed over her leadership role at #cut50 to focus on her job at Reform Alliance, but currently serves in a supportive role at #cut50. [2]

Jackson worked with #cut50, members of Congress, and the Trump Administration to develop and pass the First Step Act of 2018. [2]

In 2019 she stepped down from the Mill Valley Council and moved to Alexandria, Virginia to become the Chief Advocacy Officer at Reform Alliance, an organization committed to reforming supervision laws across the country. [20] She is tutoring Kim Kardashian in law. [20] [2]

Recognition

Jackson has received several awards and accolades. She is the recipient of the 2017 John Kable, QC, Memorial Young Justice Professional Award, the 2018 ACLU Benjamin Dreyfus Civil Liberties Award, the 2019 Alexander Law Prize from Santa Clara University [21] and the 2019 American Constitution Society Fearless Advocate Award. [22] She is a 2021 World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. [23]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prison Fellowship</span>

Prison Fellowship is the world's largest Christian nonprofit organization for prisoners, former prisoners, and their families, and a leading advocate for justice reform.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prison reform</span> Reform of the prison system

Prison reform is the attempt to improve conditions inside prisons, improve the effectiveness of a penal system, reduce recidivism or implement alternatives to incarceration. It also focuses on ensuring the reinstatement of those whose lives are impacted by crimes.

Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM) is an American nonprofit advocacy organization founded in 1991 to challenge mandatory sentencing laws and advocate for criminal justice reform. FAMM promotes sentencing policies that give judges the discretion to distinguish between defendants and sentence them according to their role in the offense, the seriousness of the offense, and their potential for rehabilitation. FAMM's members include prisoners and their families, attorneys, judges, criminal justice experts, and concerned citizens. In 2018, The Washington Post described FAMM as "one of the leading organizations that have pushed for criminal justice changes."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cindy Chavez</span> American politician

Cindy Chavez is an American politician who serves as the Santa Clara County supervisor representing district two, which is home to nearly 400,000 residents in Downtown, East, and South San Jose. Her public service career began in the 1990s as a policy analyst for health care, public health, human services and transportation for the Board of Supervisors. She served two terms on the San Jose City Council, where she was also Vice Mayor, and also served on the board leadership of public agencies such as the San Jose Redevelopment Agency, and executive director of Working Partnerships USA and the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council. She has unsuccessfully run for Mayor of San Jose twice. She is a graduate of San Jose State University, is married and has a son in college.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Karen Bass</span> Mayor of Los Angeles since 2022

Karen Ruth Bass is an American politician, social worker and former physician assistant who has served as the 43rd mayor of Los Angeles since 2022. A member of the Democratic Party, Bass previously served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2011 to 2022 and in the California State Assembly from 2004 to 2010, serving as speaker during her final Assembly term.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Van Jones</span> American political analyst and civil rights activist (born 1968)

Anthony Kapel "Van" Jones is an American political analyst, media personality, lawyer, author, and civil rights advocate. He is a three-time New York Times bestselling author, a CNN host and contributor, and an Emmy Award winner.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brennan Center for Justice</span> Liberal law and public policy institute at New York University School of Law

The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law is a liberal or progressive nonprofit law and public policy institute. The organization is named after Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr. The Brennan Center advocates for public policy positions including raising the minimum wage, opposing voter ID laws, and calling for public funding of elections. The organization opposed the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United v. FEC, which held that the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting independent political expenditures by nonprofit organizations.

This is a timeline of the San Francisco Bay Area in California, events in the nine counties that border on the San Francisco Bay, and the bay itself.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Criminal justice reform in the United States</span> Reforms seeking to address structural issues in criminal justice systems of the United States

Criminal justice reform seeks to address structural issues in criminal justice systems such as racial profiling, police brutality, overcriminalization, mass incarceration, and recidivism. Reforms can take place at any point where the criminal justice system intervenes in citizens’ lives, including lawmaking, policing, sentencing and incarceration. Criminal justice reform can also address the collateral consequences of conviction, including disenfranchisement or lack of access to housing or employment, that may restrict the rights of individuals with criminal records.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LaDoris Cordell</span> American judge (born 1949)

LaDoris Hazzard Cordell is an American retired judge of the Superior Court of California, and a retired Independent Police Auditor for the city of San Jose, California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Executive Order 13768</span> Executive order signed by U.S. President Donald Trump

Executive Order 13768 titled Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States was signed by U.S. President Donald Trump on January 25, 2017. The order stated that "sanctuary jurisdictions" including sanctuary cities that refused to comply with immigration enforcement measures would not be "eligible to receive Federal grants, except as deemed necessary for law enforcement purposes" by the U.S. Attorney General or Secretary of Homeland Security.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Garlin Gilchrist</span> American politician (born 1982)

Garlin Gilchrist II is an American politician and engineer serving as the 64th lieutenant governor of Michigan since 2019. He is a member of the Democratic Party.

Brendon DeWayne Woods is an American criminal defense attorney and an advocate for criminal justice reform. Woods currently works as the public defender for Alameda County and has served as the president of the California Public Defenders Association.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dream.org</span> American non-profit legal organization

Dream.org is a non-profit organization founded by Van Jones. It focuses on issues such as mass incarceration, climate change, and poverty by advocating for legislation, influencing public policy, and training in computer programming.

Brittany K. Barnett is an American attorney and criminal justice reform advocate. Through the organization Buried Alive, which she co-founded with Sharanda Jones and Corey Jacobs, she came to national attention when she and her co-counsel, MiAngel Cody, litigated the release of 17 people in 90 days. Her organization has received funding and endorsement from television personality Kim Kardashian. Barnett is also the founder of Girls Embracing Mothers, a non-profit organization that provides support for girls with mothers in prison.

Lenore Anderson is the president of the Alliance for Safety and Justice, an organization whose stated mission is to "win new safety priorities in states across the country [by] partner[ing] with leaders and advocates to advance state reform through networking, coalition building, research, education and advocacy."

Cynthia Ellen Jones is a criminal defense attorney and professor of law at the American University Washington College of Law specializing in criminal law and procedure as well as bail reform. Jones is an expert in racial disparities in the pretrial system and was previously the Director of the Public Defenders Service in Washington, D.C. She is a leading scholar in criminal procedure. In 2011, she was awarded the American University Faculty Award for Outstanding Teaching. Jones was the director of the Stephen S. Weinstein Trial Advocacy Program at the university. She has written three textbooks related to criminal law and procedure.

Reform Alliance is a non-profit organization dedicated to probation, parole, and sentencing reform in the United States through legislation and lobbying.

Topeka Kimberly Sam is an American advocate for criminal justice reform and a former federal prisoner. She was sentenced to over 10 years in prison in January 2013, after pleading guilty to her role in a drug trafficking conspiracy. Upon her early release from the Federal Correctional Institution, Danbury in 2015, Sam became involved in helping women transition back into society after incarceration. Her advocacy has garnered widespread recognition and awards. President Donald Trump granted a full pardon to Sam on December 23, 2020.

References

  1. ↑ California, The State Bar of. "State Bar of CA :: Jessica Michele Jackson". members.calbar.ca.gov. Retrieved 2017-05-25.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Canon, Gabrielle (November 29, 2019). "Jessica Jackson, a single mom from California, took on the prison system — and changed her life". USA Today. Retrieved 30 January 2021.
  3. ↑ "Going local is the solution for the justice system reform". MSNBC. Retrieved 2017-05-25.
  4. ↑ "Hyde School | Hall of Honor". Hyde School. Retrieved 2017-05-25.
  5. ↑ "Hyde School | Hall of Honor". Hyde School. Retrieved 2017-05-25.
  6. ↑ "Three Members of Graduating Class Have Received Special Recognition | Santa Clara Law". law.scu.edu. Retrieved 2017-05-25.
  7. ↑ "Mill Valley Democratic Delegate Comes Full Circle at Convention". Mill Valley, CA Patch. 2012-08-16. Retrieved 2017-05-25.
  8. ↑ Hecht, John (April 14, 2017). "This Millennial Activist Believes Bipartisan Criminal Justice Reform Will Happen, Even Under Trump". Bustle. Retrieved 28 April 2017.
  9. ↑ "Mill Valley council promotes respect and tolerance to quell hate episodes".
  10. ↑ "Association of Bay Area Governments Roster" (PDF). Association of Bay Area Governments Roster.
  11. ↑ "Bay Area (San Francisco, Oakland & Silicon Valley) Lawyer Chapter | ACS" . Retrieved 2017-05-25.
  12. ↑ "Mill Valley Democratic Delegate Comes Full Circle at Convention". Mill Valley, CA Patch. 2012-08-16. Retrieved 2017-05-25.
  13. ↑ "Jessica Jackson Sloan - Marin Magazine - June 2016 - Marin County, California". www.marinmagazine.com. Retrieved 2017-05-25.
  14. ↑ "Going local is the solution for the justice system reform". MSNBC. October 20, 2015. Retrieved 28 April 2017.
  15. ↑ "A Republican Governor Is Leading the Country's Most Successful Prison Reform". New Republic. Retrieved 2017-05-25.
  16. ↑ Hecht, Jon. "This Millennial Activist Believes Bipartisan Criminal Justice Reform Will Happen, Even Under Trump". Bustle. Retrieved 2017-05-25.
  17. ↑ "Dream Corps: #cut50 - Dignity for Incarcerated Women". Dream Corps. Retrieved 2020-10-01.
  18. ↑ "Dream Corps: #cut50 - Join the Empathy Network, a national community". Dream Corps. Retrieved 2020-10-01.
  19. ↑ "Dream Corps: #cut50 - 2015 Bipartisan Criminal Justice Summit". Dream Corps. Retrieved 2020-10-01.
  20. 1 2 Matthew Pera (September 14, 2019). "Mill Valley Councilwoman Jessica Jackson stepping down". Marin County Journal .
  21. ↑ "2019 Alexander Law Prize Award Ceremony" . Retrieved 30 January 2021.
  22. ↑ "ACS Bay Area: Tenth Annual Gala: Truth in the Trump Era". American Constitution Society. Retrieved 30 January 2021.
  23. ↑ Waters, Michelle (March 17, 2021). "Santa Clara University School of Law Journal". Alumni News Journal. Retrieved June 9, 2021.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.