Applying Procedural Justice Principles and Building Trust in Community Supervision Collaboration

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Crissa Blankenburg is the Administrative Manager of the Offender Success Section for the Michigan Department of Corrections, where she oversees a unit that provides technical assistance to local Community Corrections Advisory Board programs. Through innovative programming and case management local programs set targeted goals to impact the prison commitment rate and probation violation recidivism rates. She previously served as the acting manager of the Office of Community Corrections, where she supervised the specialist who provide technical assistance to our local community corrections advisory boards statewide. Ms. Blankenburg received her BS from Siena Heights University majoring in criminal justice and is a certified Business Solutions Professional.

Dr. Nicole Jarrett directs the Corrections and Reentry Division at the Council of State Governments Justice Center, where she oversees technical assistance and policy initiatives to promote system change and reduce barriers to reentry success for people on correctional or community supervision. She previously served as the director of health policy research at the National Medical Association, where she led projects to strengthen the public health safety net and improve the quality of care provided in underserved communities, and as the director of community health policy at the Baltimore City Health Department, where she directed the city’s participation in the Community Voices: Healthcare for the Underserved Initiative. Dr. Jarrett received her BS from Rutgers University and her PhD in health policy and management from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and she completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Center of Behavioral Health Services and Criminal Justice Research at Rutgers University.

Christian M. Stephens is currently the Deputy Secretary of Field Services for the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, overseeing all of state parole supervision and centralized services staff. Mr. Stephens has worked diligently to help model the combined agency structure to create efficiencies and improve combined agency effectiveness. Since taking this role in June 2016, Mr. Stephens has worked to improve accountability, use of evidence-based practices, utilize technology to reduce costs by going paperless and reducing office space, and increasing parole’s collaboration with the communities throughout the Commonwealth. Mr. Stephens received his Bachelor of Arts degree in geography, with an area of concentration in urban planning from Fayetteville State University and went on to attain his Master of Arts degree in clinical counseling psychology from Eastern University. Mr. Stephens currently holds many certifications in the fields of psychology and offender workforce development.

Dr. Heather Tubman-Carbone is a Senior Policy Advisor at the Bureau of Justice Assistance, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. She is a criminologist focused on translating research and policy into practice. At BJA, she manages data- and consensus-driven efforts to improve the fairness, efficacy and efficiency of the justice system, including the Justice Reinvestment Initiative, Justice Counts, and the National Reentry Resource Center. She previously managed a corrections portfolio at the Council of State Governments Justice Center where she oversaw technical assistance to corrections agencies to design and implement strategies to reduce recidivism and at Westat, designing and managing nationwide surveys about community corrections populations and supervision agencies. Dr. Tubman-Carbone earned her Bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice from Northeastern University, her Master’s in Criminal Justice from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and her PhD in Criminal Justice from Rutgers University School of Criminal Justice.