Just Detention International

David Kaiser, Chairperson, is a writer living in New York who just completed work on a novel. A graduate of Columbia University, he was on the editorial staff of the New York Review of Books from 1998 to 2001. Mr. Kaiser sits on the boards of several nonprofit organizations and foundations, including Winrock International. He joined JDI's Board of Directors in 2004 and previously served as Secretary.

Peter Reilly, CPA, JDI's Treasurer, is a partner with a large regional accounting firm in Massachusetts. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the Massachusetts Society of Certified Public Accountants, and has served on the AICPA Tax Division's partnership committee. Mr. Reilly has provided accounting expertise to numerous non-profit organizations and currently serves on the Board of Directors of Interlock Media, Jeremiah's Inn, and Children Supervised Visitations.

Alicia Dixon, JDI's secretary, is a public health professional with extensive philanthropic and organizational experience. She serves as Executive Director of the Marcus Foster Education Fund. As program officer of The California Endowment, Alicia boldly gave JDI a three-year grant for its work inside California prisons.

Julia Bovey specializes in communications and messaging involving energy and environmental issues, serving currently as the Director of External Affairs at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and previously as Media Director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, a leading environmental advocacy organization. She began her career as a local television reporter. Julia has a Master's degree from the Columbia University School of Journalism and a Bachelor's in history, also from Columbia. She lives in Washington, DC.

Cecilia Chung, a transgender woman living with HIV, is the Vice Chair of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission and a board member of the Asian and Pacific Islander Wellness Center. Ms. Chung previously held the position of Deputy Director at the Transgender Law Center. She has also served on the HIV Service Planning Council and the Transgender Discrimination Task Force, both in San Francisco.

Garrett Cunningham was incarcerated by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and is a survivor of prisoner rape. Mr. Cunningham endured continuous sexual harassment from the corrections officer who eventually raped him. Since his release in April 2004, Mr. Cunningham has been actively involved in advocating for meaningful implementation of the Prison Rape Elimination Act. As part of that work, he has participated in legislative hearings, made public presentations, and offered media interviews. Mr. Cunningham is the founder of Pen Friends and Services, a pen-pal service that provides resources and information to prisoners.

Dawn Davison is the first prison official to serve on JDI's Board. As former Warden of the California Institution for Women, she placed herself within the vanguard of reform-minded corrections managers by allowing JDI and the Riverside Area Rape Crisis Center to bring counselors into the prison to speak confidentially with sexual abuse survivors. As Warden, she instituted many rehabilitative programs and worked with volunteer groups, emphasizing education, life and workplace skills, the maintenance of family and community relationships, successful reintegration into society, and breaking the intergenerational cycle of incarceration. Since her retirement in 2009, Ms. Davison has remained an active consultant and activist for inmates’ rights, through her work with JDI, the California Catholic Conference, and the Center for Restorative Justice Works.

Mary Garton, MA, is the former Executive Director of Teach For America, Greater New Orleans chapter and currently serves as the chapter's Director of Alumni Support. A graduate of Washington University in St. Louis and the University of New Orleans, Ms. Garton taught for nearly 10 years in Louisiana public schools and later served as the vice principal of the New Orleans Free School. Ms. Garton has served as the director of Teach For America's Houston Summer Training Institute, and she is also a member of the Bring New Orleans Back Education Steering Committee.

Sean Hecker, JD, is a partner in the New York office of Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, where he practices in the areas of white collar criminal defense, internal investigations and complex civil litigation. Before joining Debevoise in 2006, Mr. Hecker was a trial lawyer with the Federal Defenders of New York, where he represented indigent defendants charged with a wide range of federal offenses. Mr. Hecker was previously a litigation associate with Covington & Burling in New York from 1999 to 2003, and began his legal career as a law clerk for the for the Hon. John M. Walker, Jr., U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit (1998-99), and for the Hon. Sidney H. Stein, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (1997-98).

Lovisa Stannow, MA, is the Executive Director of JDI. Ms. Stannow has spent the past two decades working in the fields of communications and international human rights. She is the former Executive Director of the Pacific Institute for Women's Health and the West Coast Director and Communications Director of Doctors Without Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières. In the early 1990s, she served as a Press Officer for Amnesty International, following several years as a journalist in Europe and Latin America. Ms. Stannow is multilingual and has spent significant parts of her career based in war zones and areas of humanitarian disaster in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Hector Villagra, JD, joined the ACLU of Southern California in 2005. Before then, he worked for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), first as a staff attorney and then as Regional Counsel. A graduate of Columbia Law School, Mr. Villagra began his professional career as a law clerk for the Honorable Robert N. Wilentz, Chief Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court, and the Honorable Stephen Reinhardt, a judge on the United States Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Amy Elaine Wakeland is a political strategist and community activist. She has helped to found two non-profit groups: one that that connects young donors with social justice organizations and another that builds parks in low-income neighborhoods. She is a member of the board of directors of the Liberty Hill Foundation and the honorary board of the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking, which recently honored Wakeland and her partner Los Angeles City Council President Eric Garcetti with its Community Partners Award. For the past four years, Wakeland has chaired the Women for a New Los Angeles Luncheon and the City of Justice Awards Dinner. Prior to her work as a political strategist, Wakeland served as the director of an urban policy project at Occidental College and a strategic planner for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services. Wakeland is the recipient of a Rhodes Scholarship and a Truman Scholarship. She has traveled widely with a variety of education, government, and human rights groups.

STAFF & BOARD