People

As Director, Phil Bowen sets and leads the work and overall strategy of the organisation. Prior to being Director, Phil spent the majority of his career in the British civil service. He worked for the Home Office and Ministry of Justice, before working at HM Treasury and Cabinet Office as a delivery adviser to the Prime Minister on criminal justice reform. During his time in the civil service, he spent 14 months on secondment to the Center for Court Innovation in New York, working at Bronx Community Solutions.

pbowen@justiceinnovation.org   |   020 3735 9433   |   Twitter:@PhillipBowen45

Claire Ely is in charge of our practice development work. This includes working with practitioners to understand problems they face, supporting them to develop, test and embed new or improved ways of working, and identifying and sharing lessons from the implementation of new projects. Claire has extensive frontline experience of the criminal justice system from her time as a probation officer, most recently as Serious Group Offending (Gangs) lead in Southwark.

cely@justiceinnovation.org | 020 3735 9437

Rupert George leads on the Centre’s communications activity and supports the Director with public affairs work. He has a long standing interest in the criminal justice system, particularly drug policy and policing. Issues he has a long experience of working with as Release’s Head of Communications. He has worked for charities in a broad range of sectors from criminal justice to health and the environment.

rgeorge@justiceinnovation.org | 020 3735 9434 | Twitter: @RupertGeorge

As Deputy Director, Vicki Morris leads the Centre’s innovative practice work and has oversight of the Centre’s essential services. She has considerable experience in operations and practice in the criminal justice sector through her previous role as the Head of Education in a young offender institution and her secondment to a closed female prison. Vicki started her career as a teacher in mainstream secondary education. She has a degree in English Literature and is also currently studying towards a degree in Youth Justice.

vmorris@justiceinnovation.org | 020 3735 9435

Carmen Robin-D’Cruz works to research, develop and test new approaches to justice system practice, particularly in the youth justice system. She is responsible for identifying evidence of effective practice and producing practical evidence-led recommendations for service delivery that can be implemented and evaluated. Carmen has previously worked as Research Advisor at the University of Edinburgh and Research Assistant at Reading University’s School of Law. She studied Law at University College London and has a Bachelor of Civil Law from the University of Oxford.

cdcruz@justiceinnovation.org | 020 3735 9436

Stephen Whitehead oversees the Centre’s research work, heading up our work to develop the evidence base around innovative practice in the justice system. His work focusses particularly on sentencing decisions, the use of community sentences and problem-solving courts. In his previous role, he established the New Economics Foundation’s criminal justice reform programme which explored the role that diversion and specialist courts could play in the UK. He holds an MRes from Birkbeck College in public policy.

swhitehead@justiceinnovation.org | 020 3735 9437 | Twitter:@Stephenoncrime