Joann De Jesus

Joann DeJesus is CJA’s Director of Special Projects. In this role, she oversees CJA’s Supervised Release program in Queens and provides leadership and technical guidance to the staff who operate in both Long Island City and Queens Criminal Court. She collaborates with the entire executive team and has served as the chief support person for the agency’s Executive Director for over 15 years, helping with the implementation of various agency initiatives throughout that time. Joann’s professional background is a blend of administration and programmatic practice work, including the Centralized Court Screening Service initiative of 1997, and the Alternative to Incarceration Information Services project from 1999-2004. More recently, Joann was part of the original team of CJA employees who worked in collaboration with the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, to develop and launch the city’s first Supervised Release programs, comprised of a pilot in Queens in 2009, and the Manhattan Demonstration project in 2013. Born in Queens, Joann has committed much of her professional career to reducing unnecessary pretrial detention in New York City and is particularly interested in and impassioned when it comes to restorative justice-related initiatives for the underserved.