Laurie O. Robinson
Assistant Attorney General

Laurie O. Robinson was sworn in as Assistant Attorney General on November 9, 2009. Ms. Robinson previously served as Assistant Attorney General at the Office of Justice Programs from 1993 to February, 2000. During that time, she oversaw the largest increase in federal spending on criminal justice research in the nation's history, and under her leadership the annual appropriations for OJP grew substantially - from $800 million in 1993 to over $4 billion in 2000. At the same time, she also spearheaded initiatives in areas ranging from comprehensive community-based crime control to violence against women, law enforcement technology, drug abuse and corrections.

Ms. Robinson served as Acting Assistant Attorney General and Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General of OJP from January 2009 until nominated by President Obama in September 2009. Since returning to the Department of Justice, she has overseen the implementation of the $2.7 billion in programs for which Congress assigned responsibility to OJP under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act; launched a new agency-wide Evidence Integration Initiative to help ensure science-based approaches in OJP-funded programs; and held a series of "listening sessions" with state and local constituents to learn what OJP can do to better serve the field.

From 2004 until January 2009, Ms. Robinson served as director of the Master of Science Program in the University of Pennsylvania's Department of Criminology. Between 2001 and January 2009, she also 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.

Ms. Robinson has 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 chaired), 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.