Dr Barbara Owen

Independent Researcher, Owen Research and Evaluation, United States

Barbara Owen is an international expert in the areas of women and imprisonment; improving operational practice in women’s prisons via research; and women’s prison culture. She has extensive experience in conducting mixed methods research, including participant observation, ethnographies, large-scale surveys, policy studies, and program evaluation. Internationally, her work involves implementing human rights protections in women’s prisons with the Thailand Institute of Justice, where she serves as a Senior Advisor. 
A Professor Emerita of Criminology at California State University, Fresno, she received her Ph.D. in Sociology from UC Berkeley in 1984.  Prior to returning to academia, Dr. Owen was a Senior Researcher with the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Dawn Davison

Dawn Davison, MS is the former Warden of the California Institution for Women (CIW).  She had a 30-year career with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, the last seven years as the Warden of CIW.  As Warden, she instituted many gender-responsive, rehabilitative programs and practice. Here, here focus was staff and volunteer groups, emphasizing college education, life and workplace skills, the maintenance of family and community relationships, successful reintegration into society, and breaking the intergenerational cycle of incarceration. Ms. Davison has also provided consulting and technical assistance to other state and federal facilities. Most recently, she has served on the Special Master team investigating sexual misconduct and other operational failures in a US federal court case. Since her retirement in 2009, Ms. Davison remains involved with incarcerated and other marginalized populations through her work as Chair of the Board of Directors of Just Detention International, a global health and human rights non-profit organization that works to stop sexual abuse in correctional and detention facilities. Additionally, she is a Governor-appointed member of the California Prison Industry Authority Board of Directors. Ms. Davison received a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from Loyola Marymount University and a Master of Science degree in Counseling Psychology from California State University, Fullerton.  

Dr Susan Dewey

Professor, University of Alabama, USA

Susan Dewey is a Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at The University of Alabama who uses immersive, community-based participatory research methods to understand violence, vulnerability, and criminal justice institutions. She is author/editor of 16 book-length works and over 100 articles and reports, with this research supported by federal funders including the National Science Foundation, Census Bureau, Department of Justice, and Fulbright-Hays, international organizations such as UN Women, and foundations such as the Wenner Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, Microsoft Philanthropies, Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, the Correctional Education Association, and the National Collaborative on Gun Violence Research. Results of these projects have been featured in national media outlets such as The Chronicle of Higher Education, PBS, The Huffington Post, The Washington Post, and The Nation. Susan has led six CBPR projects in which she: founded and directed a free college-in-prison program, worked with 100+ prisons and jails to understand ways to create positive correctional social climates, became ethnographically embedded at a women’s transitional housing facility to better serve substance-using women involved in the street sex trade, and collaborated with UN Women to support women market traders. Her two current research partnerships are with the Tuscaloosa District Attorney’s Office, assisting prosecutors with a variety of projects, including analysis of dynamics underlying violent crimes, and the South Carolina Department of Corrections, where she designed and implemented a peer mentoring program for women. She speaks five languages, has spent time in 46 countries, and lives/farms on a self-sufficient, off-the-grid permaculture homestead.

Julie Tennant-Caine

Jennifer Leahy

Director, Project Rebound, California State University-Fresno

Jennifer Leahy is the Program Director for Project Rebound, CSU Fresno. She also
teaches a variety of Criminology courses at Fresno State and at two local prisons, Central California Women’s Facility and Valley State Prison. While working as a research assistant to Dr. Barbara Owen, an international expert on female offenders, Jennifer’s work included the evaluation of the implementation of AB109 in Fresno County, various projects for the Thailand Institute of Justice as well as for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. In her role as Program Director for Project Rebound, she works with justice-impacted students, guiding them to change their trajectories through academia and assisting them in navigation of the complexities of reentry via group events and direct case management. She also works to build sustainable community partnerships
with any group/agency that works in reentry for adults and/or juveniles. Through her
various employment positions Jennifer promotes transformation through education in and out of the correctional system, in the community and at a variety of prisons in California as a means to reduce recidivism. She obtained her Master’s in Criminology after 17 years of incarceration, graduating with Distinction as Dean’s Medalist. Her combination of education and practical experience puts her in a unique position to assist those interested in effective programming to reduce recidivism.

Emma Hughes

Dr. Emma Hughes is a Professor in the Criminology Department at California State University, Fresno. Dr. Hughes earned her Ph.D. in Criminology from Birmingham City University in the UK, where she also taught for five years before moving to Fresno. Dr. Hughes earned her M.Phil. in Criminology from the University of Cambridge, UK. She has an M.A.in History from Columbia University, USA, and earned her B.A. in English from Stanford University, USA. Her research interests focus on jails and prisons, with a particular emphasis on rehabilitation programs. She is the author of the book Education in Prison: Studying through Distance Learning, published by Ashgate in 2012. She contributed a chapter on prison education to the book How Offenders Transform Their Lives (eds: Veysey, Christian & Martinez, 2009, Willan Publishing) and has also contributed chapters to edited volumes on prison education. She co-edited and contributed to The Voluntary Sector in Prisons: Encouraging Personal and Institutional Change (2016), a volume that features in Palgrave Macmillan's Studies in Prisons and Penology series, and she contributed a chapter to Higher Education and the Carceral State: Transforming Together (ed. A. Buckley, 2024, Routledge). She is the founder of Project Rebound at Fresno State, a support program for formerly incarcerated students. She serves as the program coordinator for Fresno State's BA program in two California prison

Stephanie Torres

Stephanie Torres earned a master’s degree in criminology from California State University, Fresno (USA) in 2007, focusing her thesis project on pathways to secure housing, focusing on female offenders who commit serious rule violations while in prison. With a peaked interest in correctional systems, she worked on over ten different funded research projects involving female and male offenders in several different states and various types of facilities. Methodologies included interviews, surveys, and program evaluation. Ms. Torres shifted to service provision and worked in a substance abuse treatment facility within a women’s correctional setting and continued there as the Program Director until late 2009.
Ms. Torres transitioned from research to correctional practice in 2010 and now serves as an Associate Warden at a large women’s facility within the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Beginning as a Correctional Officer in a maximum security prison for male inmates, Having worked in four Correctional Facilities with both male and female populations, Ms. Torres provides a diverse perspective in correctional practice. In addition to her work in correctional practice, Ms. Torres has served as an adjunct faculty lecturer for the last 18 years at the California State University, Fresno Criminology Department, teaching courses in research and criminal justice organizations.
 

Wendy Still

Wendy Still is a criminologist and expert corrections and conditions of detention, community
corrections and re-entry consultant with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Organizational Behavior from the University of San Francisco and a master’s degree in criminology, Law, and Society from the University of California at Irvine. Ms. Still’s over 40 years of correctional expertise includes 26 years of operating, managing, and performing direct supervision and oversight for up to ten male and female prisons with approximately 40,000 inmates and 15,000 staff for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). She has conducted over 50 conditions of detention investigations for Department of Homeland Security (USA. As the retired Chief Probation Officer of Alameda County and City and County of San Francisco Adult Probation, she was responsible for Juvenile Detention Facilities and oversight of over 14,000 adult and juvenile probationers and the development and implementation of re-entry programs. Ms. Still as the court appointed Special Master lead the investigation team in the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Dublin Correctional Institution female class action litigation, and continues to monitor conditions of confinement for the over 600 female adults in custody. Ms. Still also served as the Project Director for the Re-imagine Adult Justice project in Alameda County and authored numerous reports related to alternatives to detention reports. Chief Still won Governing Magazine’s Public Official of the Year award in 2014 and numerous State and local awards throughout her career recognizing her correctional expertise.