Laurie O. Robinson
Deputy Assistant Attorney General

Laurie O. Robinson was named Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General on September 14, 2009. Ms. Robinson previously served as Assistant Attorney General at the Office of Justice Programs from 1993 to February, 2000. Ms. Robinson oversaw the largest increase in federal spending on criminal justice research in the nation's history. Under her leadership, the annual appropriations for the Office of Justice Programs grew substantially - from $800 million in 1993 to over $4 billion in 2000. During this time, she also spearheaded a number of initiatives in areas ranging from comprehensive community-based crime control to violence against women, law enforcement technology, drug abuse and corrections.

Since 2004, Ms. Robinson has been the director of the Master of Science Program in the University of Pennsylvania's Department of Criminology. And since 2001, she also has served as a Distinguished Senior Scholar in the University's Jerry Lee Center of Criminology, and as Executive Director of its Forum on Crime & Justice.

Prior to joining the Department of Justice in 1993, Ms. Robinson was the director of the American Bar Association's Section of Criminal Justice for 14 years, where she founded the ABA's Juvenile Justice Center and had responsibility for policy development, work with Congress, and development of special projects in such areas as crime victims, prisons, police procedures, and computer crime.

Ms. Robinson served on a number of national boards relating to the justice system (including the Board of Trustees of the Vera Institute of Justice (which she chairs), the Board of Directors of the Police Foundation, and the Advisory Board for the George Mason University Administration of Justice Program), has published numerous articles in criminal justice and legal periodicals, and has spoken at hundreds of criminal justice-related conferences and forums. She is a magna cum laude graduate of Brown University and a member of Phi Beta Kappa.