Cassandra Ramdath

My journey into criminal justice research began in high school when I interned with a victim services program and later with probation and parole, which sparked my deep interest in understanding and improving the criminal justice system. I went on to earn my master's and PhD in criminal justice in New York, and began my research career at Rikers Island, where I studied what people were experiencing in prison and jail environments, focusing on health and justice issues like traumatic brain injuries and how they impacted people's ability to navigate jails. After my PhD, which I completed in 2015, I branched into various criminal justice research topics ranging from procedural justice to gun violence prevention, court diversion programs, and transformative justice programs, all with the goal of transforming systems. I eventually became the Director of Research and Evaluation at the Georgetown Law Center for Innovations in Community Safety, where I focused on the entry point of the criminal justice system - policing - and worked to train police officers to reduce harm and result in better outcomes for communities and systems. Now I am honored to be at Yale University as a research scholar and the director of the Justice Collaboratory, where I am really getting to spread my wings and think at a higher level about trust in governance, how we build legitimacy in systems tasked with creating community safety, and how we center community priorities, voice, and needs when building systems that govern communities, especially systems that have historically caused so much harm. Throughout my career, my greatest accomplishment has been elevating the use of community-engaged research methods, which is not a traditional method but one that people have sought me out specifically for. This approach challenges traditional systems with innovative ways that promote equity and create space for people who have been disproportionately disadvantaged by the criminal justice system, shifting power through co-decision making and co-creation. I have presented this model at many conferences and continue to use this philosophy in all my work at Yale, which is one of the reasons they brought me onto the team.