About Us

Who We Are

About Us

Who We Are

The Family-Based Justice Center is funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) and operated by New York University's Marron Institute of Urban Management.

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP)

The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974, Public Law 93–415, as amended, established the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) to support local and state efforts to prevent delinquency and improve juvenile justice systems.

A component of the Office of Justice Programs within the U.S. Department of Justice, OJJDP works to prevent and respond to youth delinquency and protect children.

Through its divisions, OJJDP sponsors research, program, and training initiatives; develops priorities and goals and sets policies to guide federal juvenile justice issues; disseminates information about juvenile justice issues; and awards funds to states to support local programming.

The vision of OJJDP is envisioning a nation where our children are free from crime and violence. If they come into contact with the justice system, the contact should be rare, fair, and beneficial to them.

The mission of OJJDP is to provide national leadership, coordination, and resources to prevent and respond to youth delinquency and victimization. The Office helps states, localities, and Tribes develop effective and equitable juvenile justice systems that create safer communities and empower youth to lead productive lives.

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The Litmus Program, at the Marron Institute, promotes innovation in the public sector; we work with public agencies and the people they serve to develop and rigorously test new ideas for improving the performance of the public sector.

Whether working with agencies focused on criminal justice, education, healthcare, or social services, Litmus aims to change the way that knowledge is created in the public sector. We facilitate “deliberative innovation”—a process of engagement and experimentation that empowers public agencies to test their own ideas, on their own terms, with the full confidence that our team will support them on the analytical details.

Meet the Team

The multidisciplinary team at The Center has a wealth of expertise in program design, development and implementation, research, evaluation, lived experience, legislation, and policy. Read more about the team.

Janelle C. Prueter
Co-Director of the Family-Based Justice Center

Janelle Prueter joined the Marron Institute in 2017, from her former position as Vice-President of Programs at Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities (TASC) in Illinois. During her tenure at TASC, Ms. Prueter led implementation of the Family Recovery and Reunification program in collaboration with the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services and the Mom’s and Babies program, a prison-based nursery program, in collaboration with the Illinois Department of Corrections. She has conducted hundreds of training sessions and workshops on topics including substance use, reentry, and alternatives to incarceration. She has provided TTA to IDOC in her current role, and to BJA Second Chance and RSAT grantees previously. Ms. Prueter has a B.A. in psychology and sociology from Beloit College and an M.S. in public services management from DePaul University.

Sandy Mullins
Co-Director of the Family-Based Justice Center

Sandy Mullins, J.D., has over two decades experience in policymaking, including as the Director of the Office of Executive Policy of the Washington State Department of Corrections and Senior Policy Advisor on Public Safety and Government Operations to the Governor of Washington, where her portfolio included criminal and juvenile justice and victim services. Ms. Mullins served as the Executive Director of the Washington State Sentencing Guidelines Commission, which involved multidisciplinary efforts to tackle ongoing and emerging criminal- and juvenile-justice challenges. Prior to her work in Washington, she served as the Executive Director of the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar, which works with its partners to improve criminal- and juvenile-justice processes and outcomes through legislative reform. Ms. Mullins has a B.A. in psychology and a J.D., both from the University of Colorado.

Isabel Coronado
Coordinator

Isabel Coronado serves as the coordinator of Family-Based Justice Center. She provides day-to-day operation assisting grantees with implementation of their family-based alternative-sentencing programs, develops resources, and trains stakeholders. Prior to joining NYU, she was a Policy Entrepreneur at Next100, a progressive think tank for people with lived experience. Ms. Coronado used her time at Next100 to research, write, and develop original policy to better support children of incarcerated parents. She used her lived experience as a former child of an incarcerated mother to bring awareness to Native youth impacted by parental incarceration and mass incarceration in Native communities. In 2019, she joined the coalition To Keep Families Together, to advocate for the passage of the federal FAMILIES Act, which would authorize funding for states to implement alternative sentencing for parents and allow federal prisons to divert parents from prison, and she served as chair of the coalition beginning in 2020. She was Deputy Director of the American Indian Criminal Justice Navigation Council, where she co-developed a new nonprofit to bring data and awareness to the mass incarceration of Native people in Oklahoma. Ms. Coronado has a B.S. in health care administration from Northeastern State University and an M.P.H., with an emphasis on rural and underserved populations, from Oklahoma State University.

The Family-Based Justice Center is funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) and operated by New York University's Marron Institute of Urban Management.

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP)
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Meet the Team

The multidisciplinary team at The Center has a wealth of expertise in program design, development and implementation, research, evaluation, lived experience, legislation, and policy. Read more about the team.

Janelle C. Prueter

Co-Director of the Family-Based Justice Center

Sandy Mullins

Co-Director of the Family-Based Justice Center

Isabel Coronado

Coordinator