Dignity by Design: Integrating Data, Design, and Dynamic Relationships in Young Adult Corrections

ICPA 2025 Presentation by Chloe Aquart and Selma Djokovic (PID058)

Authors

Chloe Aquart

Initiative Director, Restoring Promise, Vera Institute of Justice, United States

Chloe Aquart is the director of Vera’s Restoring Promise initiative, where she guides the development and management of all operations and administrative systems. She previously served as deputy initiative director. Before joining Vera in 2022, Chloe was the director of people-centered practices at the Center for Court Innovation (CCI), where she led a broad range of local and national initiatives, including projects aimed at reforming prosecution, increasing community-based organizational capacity to mitigate and prevent gun violence, expanding the use of alternative to incarceration and diversion programs, and steering procedural justice initiatives. Beyond the United States, Chloe managed CCI’s international development portfolio, providing training and technical assistance to global criminal justice stakeholders in more than 16 countries. Chloe holds a BS in accounting from Hunter College, City University of New York, an MA in urban affairs from Queens College, and a JD from New York Law School.

Selma Djokovic

Associate Director of Research, Restoring Promise, Vera Institute of Justice, United States

Selma Djokovic is the associate director of research of Vera’s Restoring Promise initiative, where she leads research that helps create and maintain prison housing units that are rooted in human dignity. She has expanded the way participatory methods are used in their research, has developed pathways for research and data to inform implementation and decision-making for the initiative, and has been instrumental in the team’s first randomized control trial assessing the impact of changing prison culture on young adult behavior. Before joining Vera in 2017, Selma worked for six years with the Public Science Project, a participatory action research institute based in the City University of New York Graduate Center. There, she worked on several participatory action research projects based in New York City related to young adults’ experiences with, and attitudes about, police and school safety officers.

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