Managing Director of Innovation, Research, and National Impact
Julian Adler is the Center for Justice Innovation’s Managing Director of Innovation, Research, and National Impact. Working closely with the Chief Executive Officer, Julian oversees Action Research, the organization’s research and data analytics division, and Community Justice Solutions, the home for the Center’s national initiatives. Community Justice Solutions also includes the Center’s Studio, an incubator for emerging ideas and innovations. Prior to this role, Julian served as the Center’s Chief Innovation and Strategy Officer, guiding the development of policy priorities and new ventures and advancing leading-edge ideas and practices across the organization.
Julian joined the Center in 2008 as the Clinical Director at the Red Hook Community Justice Center, leading broader organizational efforts to incorporate trauma-informed care and evidence-generating practices. Next, as the Deputy Project Director in Red Hook, Julian served as a member of the small planning team for Newark Community Solutions, the first community court in New Jersey. Then as the Project Director in Red Hook, Julian served as the lead planner for Brooklyn Justice Initiatives, which included the Center’s first foray into pretrial justice, and led the Adolescent Diversion Pilot for Brooklyn, a precursor to Raise the Age in criminal court.
On the national front, Julian led the Center’s work with the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation on the planning and launch of the Safety and Justice Challenge, an ambitious initiative to reduce the use of jails and reduce racial and ethnic disparities in the criminal legal system. He also led the Center’s work with the Arnold Ventures philanthropy on a broad range of national projects, including the launch of the multi-year project, Advancing Pretrial Policy & Research. Additionally, Julian spearheaded national portfolios on fines and fees reform and right-to-counsel. As the Director of Policy and Research, Julian shepherded the expansion of both the Research-Practice Strategies and the Data Analytics and Applied Research teams.
Julian is the co-author of Start Here: A Road Map to Reducing Mass Incarceration (The New Press, 2018), along with a range of book chapters and articles examining the intersections of the criminal legal system, social science, mental health, and technology. He is a producer of the Center’s “New Thinking” podcast and serves as an advisor to Wesleyan University’s Center for Prison Education.
