Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani named Justine Olderman, a longtime public defender and NYU law professor, as the city’s Criminal Justice Coordinator on June 5.
Olderman will report to First Deputy Mayor Dean Fuleihan and run the day-to-day operations of the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice. The job has her working with district attorneys, public defenders, courts, public safety agencies, and the Department of Correction to reduce incarceration, strengthen community safety, and improve fairness across the system. She will also advise Fuleihan on criminal justice policy and strategy, develop new initiatives, and evaluate policies on case processing and system operations.
She comes to the role from NYU School of Law, where she is a Distinguished Scholar in Residence and directs the Pretrial Freedom Lab, which works to reduce unnecessary pretrial detention. Before that she was a Senior Research Scholar at NYU’s Marron Institute of Urban Management, developing best practices for alternatives to incarceration. She spent 23 years at The Bronx Defenders, a public defense organization serving Bronx residents, including six as Executive Director. In that job she led a staff of 425, managed a $65 million budget, and expanded legal services to more than 13,000 clients a year.
“Justine Olderman has spent her career standing alongside New Yorkers as they navigate a criminal legal system that too often falls short of the fairness and dignity every person deserves,” Mayor Mamdani said in the announcement. “Her commitment to justice and accountability reflects the values our administration is fighting for every day.”
In a statement, Olderman said, “A criminal legal system that is just and fair does more than respond to harm after the fact. It helps advance community safety. Delivering on that vision means bringing defenders, prosecutors, courts, city agencies and the communities most impacted to the table to align around shared goals. I have spent over 20 years working to improve our criminal legal system and am eager to bring that experience toward implementing the Mayor’s agenda.”
The appointment is part of the administration’s effort to close Rikers Island. Department of Correction Commissioner Stanley Richards called Olderman “an essential partner in helping us close Rikers,” saying her experience gives her “a 360-degree view of public safety” and that she “knows that addressing people’s needs before they result in arrest and incarceration will both reduce crime and decrease the number of people in jail and prison.” Close Rikers Czar Dana Kaplan, the city official designated to advance the Rikers closure effort, said Olderman is “a close and key partner in the administration’s commitment to close Rikers and for a new vision of public safety in New York City.”
Juval O. Scott, who succeeded Olderman as Executive Director of The Bronx Defenders, said her work in the Bronx prepared her for the role. “Justine understands how one arrest can affect a person’s family, housing, health, and future, and she has spent more than two decades building approaches that respond to people’s full lives, prevent unnecessary system involvement, and create pathways to stability,” Scott said.
Both the Bronx and Manhattan District Attorneys praised the appointment. Bronx DA Darcel Clark, a former judge, said she had seen Olderman’s “executive leadership, deep understanding of the impact of public policy, and passionate advocacy on behalf of defendants” firsthand, and said she is “confident that her past commitment to public service will now extend to victims of crime and communities across New York City.” Manhattan DA Alvin L. Bragg Jr. said Olderman brings “a great blend of on the ground criminal justice knowledge and management experience.”
Elizabeth Glazer, founder of Vital City and a former Director of the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, described Olderman as “an extraordinarily capable manager who is fair-minded, far-seeing and patient, indispensable qualities for this important and complicated position.” Tina Luongo, Chief Attorney of the Criminal Defense Practice at The Legal Aid Society, called Olderman “a thoughtful and effective leader, advancing bold ideas while bringing people from differing viewpoints together to tackle some of the most difficult challenges facing our criminal legal system.”
Olderman graduated magna cum laude from NYU School of Law, where she also received the George P. Faulk Memorial Award for Distinguished Scholarship, and clerked for Judge Robert J. Ward of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. She earned her undergraduate degree with highest honors from the University of Michigan.
Featured image: Dmitryshein / CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
