franklin.cruz

Franklin Cruz is Chief Operating Officer and Program Director at JMI, where he has been responsible for training and technical assistance since 2011. In 2013, Franklin assumed responsibility for coordinating the Resource Center Partnership, the latest expansion of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Models for Change initiative. More recently, JMI, with Franklin as a key team member, has also been involved in the MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge focused on reducing the overreliance on jails and the racial and ethnic disparities in the adult criminal justice system. His other projects include business process analysis of county criminal and juvenile justice systems, promoting evidence-based interventions for drug-involved defendants and offenders, and an implementation evaluation of the expansion of the public defender office in Massachusetts. Franklin previously served as Chief Operating Officer at The Bronx Defenders, a nationally-recognized public defender office in New York City. In addition to his decade at The Bronx Defenders, Franklin has worked in the education sector, most recently as Professional Services Director at Teachscape, a professional development company for K-12 educators and instructional leaders. Franklin received his B.A. in Public Policy from Brown University and holds a Master of Public Policy from the University of California at Berkeley.