Carolina Aparicio, Communications Officer
Leelyn Aquino, Program Officer
Chris Daley, Deputy Executive Director
Nicole de la Torre, Program Officer
Sasha Gear, Program Director
Kristin Hall, Deputy Executive Director
Vivian Jojola, Program Director
Christine Kregg, Program Director
Jesse Lerner-Kinglake, Senior Communications Officer
Desiree Magsombol, Program Officer
Linda McFarlane, Deputy Executive Director
Derek Murray, Program Director
Boafoa Offei-Darko, Development Assistant
Gwyn Smith-Downes, Senior Program Director
Lovisa Stannow, Executive Director
Cynthia Totten, Senior Program Director
Carolina Aparicio is JDI’s Communications Officer. Carolina manages JDI’s multimedia projects, including website content, social media, and videos. She also supports JDI’s media relations, donor development, and online trainings. Prior to joining JDI, she worked as communications specialist for the Program for Torture Victims. Carolina has also worked on issues related to immigrants’ and workers' rights. She holds a B.A. in political science from Boston University.
caparicio@justdetention.org
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Leelyn Aquino is the Program Officer in JDI's Los Angeles office. Previously, she worked as an Immigration Paralegal in the Family Reunification & Naturalization Department at Reeves & Associates in Pasadena, CA. She enjoys volunteering and has worked with Habitat for Humanity, the LA County Regional Food Bank, and her local Golden Key chapter. Leelyn studied at the University of California, Berkeley and California State University, Los Angeles and is currently pursuing a Master's Degree.
laquino@justdetention.org
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Chris Daley, Esq,
is JDI's Deputy Executive Director. For more than
15 years, Chris has been active in advancing civil rights and public health
issues. He is a founder and the inaugural Director of California's Transgender
Law Center, a multi-cultural, multi-disciplinary agency working to end
discrimination and harassment of transgender people and their families. While
at the law center, he helped to create and implement wide ranging, innovative
programs to change laws and institutions for the better. Chris has also
worked on issues of immigrants' rights, ending homelessness, public benefits
advocacy, HIV education and prevention, and abuse of police power.
cdaley@justdetention.org
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Nicole de la Torre is the Program Officer in JDI's
Washington, D.C. office. Before joining JDI, she worked as an
interpreter for Villanova University's School of Law Clinical Programs, where she provided Spanish
language interpretation for legal staff and immigrant clients and conducted intakes for their
Spanish hotline. Nicole also served as an intern in the U.S. House of Representatives for
Pedro Pierluisi, Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico. She is a graduate of Villanova University.
ndelatorre@justdetention.org
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Sasha Gear is a Program Director for JDI, based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Prior to joining JDI, she spent ten years working in the area of sexual violence in South African prisons, as part of the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation's Criminal Justice Programme. Her research on the circumstances of sexual violence in men's prisons has played an important role in bringing the issue out of the shadows. She has published widely on the ways in which violence plays out in the world of prisons and on the gendered dimensions of sexual violence against men.
sgear@justdetention.org
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Kristin Hall
is JDI's Deputy Executive Director. She has worked with survivors of domestic
and sexual violence for more than 15 years. Kristin is the former Executive Director
and Chair of the Board of Directors of the Sexual Assault Crisis Agency in Long
Beach, California. She has developed and facilitated trainings for law enforcement
officers, medical professionals, and community advocates on the dynamics and impact
of domestic and sexual violence. Most recently, Kristin served as Grant Writer
for A Window Between Worlds, an organization providing art workshops to battered
women and children in shelters.
khall@justdetention.org
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Vivian Jojola is a Program Director at JDI. She has been an advocate for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault for more than two decades. She previously served as the Director of Volunteer Services at the YWCA of Glendale and at Caring for Children and Families with AIDS, both in Los Angeles, and as co-chair of the Board of Directors of the Sexual Assault Crisis Agency, in Long Beach, California. Earlier in her career, she worked to reduce the transmission of HIV/AIDS among high risk populations including sex workers, IV drug users, and the homeless. Prior to joining JDI, Vivian spent nearly a decade at the Liberty Hill Foundation.
vjojola@justdetention.org
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Christine Kregg
is a JDI Program Director. She works on several domestic projects to ensure inmate safety and to help facilities implement the Prison Rape Elimination Act standards. Since joining JDI in 2007, Christine has provided crisis intervention, support, information, and referrals to thousands of prisoner rape survivors and their loved ones. Her expertise includes providing training for corrections officials and community service providers, launching inmate counseling and peer education programs, conducting policy analysis, and mobilizing sexual assault response teams in prisons and jails. Christine is fluent in Spanish and is a certified rape crisis counselor.
ckregg@justdetention.org
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Jesse Lerner-Kinglake, MA, is JDI’s Senior Communications Officer. Jesse coordinates JDI’s print and online publications, and serves as its primary media contact. He has extensive experience managing communications projects for non-governmental organizations in the U.S and the U.K. Prior to joining JDI, he served as Communications Manager for the International Rescue Committee UK. Jesse is a graduate of Wesleyan University and holds a Master’s Degree in International History from the London School of Economics.
jkinglake@justdetention.org
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Desiree Magsombol, JD,
is a Program Officer at JDI’s Los Angeles office. Prior to joining JDI, she worked as a paralegal and a community advocate at the Gay Men’s Domestic Violence Project in Cambridge, MA, where she provided direct crisis services to LGBTQ survivors of domestic violence. She has also worked at a youth residential facility in Framingham, MA, and as the advisor of a youth-led community-based organization in Los Angeles. She is a graduate of UC Santa Cruz and holds a JD from the John F. Kennedy School of Law’s Public Interest program.
dmagsombol@justdetention.org
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Linda McFarlane, MSW, LCSW,
is JDI's Deputy Executive Director. She has worked with survivors of sexual violence
in a variety of settings throughout the last two decades. Linda is the former
Director of Counseling Services for the Sexual Assault Crisis Agency in Long Beach,
California. She has served as a counselor and advocate for children and youth in
both foster care and detention. In 1995, Linda was instrumental in implementing
a ground-breaking treatment program for mentally ill incarcerated teen girls in
Detroit, Michigan. She has worked in crisis intervention with a variety of populations
including survivors of domestic violence and child abuse, teens and adults living
with mental illness, and people living in poverty and with addictions.
lmcfarlane@justdetention.org
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Derek Murray, MPA,
serves as Program Director at JDI. Prior to joining JDI he worked as Administrative
Coordinator for a small non-profit organization serving the gay and transgender
community in Hollywood and West Hollywood. Derek has extensive volunteer experience,
including at the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center, Minority AIDS Project, and
Bienestar. He is a UCLA graduate and received his Master's of Public Administration
from California State University, Northridge.
dmurray@justdetention.org
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Boafoa Offei-Darko, is JDI’s Development Assistant. Prior to joining JDI, she was a Social Outreach Director for Happy, a documentary film. She has also worked as an after school tutor and mentor for at-risk teens at Bridge the Gap and Higher Achievement. A graduate of Wellesley College with a B.A. in English, Boafoa is passionate about providing education on effective mental health services and fighting the stigma surrounding mental illness.
bdarko@justdetention.org
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Gwyn Smith-Downes is a Senior Program Director with JDI. Gwyn has nearly 25 years of experience in the field of corrections. From 2006 to 2011 she was Executive Director of the American Jail Association, a national nonprofit organization representing more than 70,000 jail professionals. Prior to joining AJA, Gwyn served as the first Executive Director of the National Correctional Industries Association and worked as legislative liaison and adult projects director at the American Correctional Association. The author of numerous articles on the U.S. corrections system, Gwyn has vast expertise in policy analysis, public relations, and medical issues affecting both corrections officials and detainees.
gsmith@justdetention.org
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Lovisa Stannow, MA,
is the Executive Director of JDI. Lovisa 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. Lovisa 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.
lstannow@justdetention.org
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Cynthia Totten, Esq,
serves as Senior Program Director for JDI. She previously worked as a litigator at
Sprenger and Lang, PLLC in Washington, D.C. from 2000 until 2006, representing plaintiffs
in civil rights class action cases. In 1999, Cynthia was selected as a Women's
Law and Public Policy Fellow, and, in that capacity, worked in the Women's Rights
Division of Human Rights Watch, in Washington, D.C. until 2000, focusing on sexual
violence against women incarcerated in California state prisons. She was also formerly
associated with a law firm in San Diego, California. Cynthia is a graduate of
Wellesley College and Harvard Law School.
ctotten@justdetention.org
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