James Bell is the Executive Director of the W. Haywood Burns Institute. Prior to his current position, he represented incarcerated youth as a staff attorney at the Youth Law Center in San Francisco for 20 years.

At the BI, Bell has worked extensively to address the overrepresentation of youth of color in juvenile justice systems. He has helped guide disparities reduction in over 30 jurisdictions across the country, helping lead stakeholders in achieving measurable reduction of ethnic and racial disparities in juvenile justice systems while upholding public safety.

Bell is also the co-director of the Community Justice Network for Youth, and has been piloting work regarding the distinct impact of policies and practices on youth of color, including the imposition of the death penalty on children, mental health issues and school disciplinary policies. On the international level, Bell has worked with governments around restorative justice principles, including assistting the African National Congress in South Africa, Palestinian and Israeli judicial officers, Cambodian human rights advocates and New Zealand family group counseling officials.

Bell is the recipient of a Kellogg National Leadership Fellowship; Livingstone Hall Award for Outstanding Juvenile Advocacy from the American Bar Association; Clinton White Attorney of the Year Award from the Charles Houston Bar Association; and "Advocate of the Year" from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention of the Justice Department.

Marlene Sanchez is the program director for the Center for Young Women's Development and runs a program in San Francisco's Juvenile Hall. Her passion for social justice is informed by the experience of a childhood in the Mission District of San Francisco and first-hand knowledge of the juvenile justice system. Her personal experience as a young woman has inspired her work at CYWD, where she and other young women work to create change in the system.

Lateefah Simon is the new Executive Director of the Lawyers’ Committee. Before that, she had become the Executive Director of Center for Young Women's Development in San Francisco at age 20. There, Simon and her team developed one of the nation's first peer-run education, employment and community reintegration programs for post-adjudicated and incarcerated girls. The education program, which still operates inside San Francisco's juvenile hall, is run entirely by formerly incarcerated young women. Before coming to the Lawyers’ Committee, Simon was head of reentry programs for San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris.

Cheryl Graves is an attorney involved in the Juvenile Advocacy Project of the Children and Family Justice Center of the Northwestern University Legal Clinic. She represents children in delinquency proceedings and supervises law students in their work on such cases. She received her law degree from IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law in 1984 and has a Masters of Public Health degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Graves has developed a comprehensive health, education and wellness program for young women at the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center School, known as "Girl Talk." She also developed a community-based Street Law project to teach residents at the detention center and youths in community settings about their rights, responsibilities and the consequences of the juvenile justice system. She has worked to develop the Community Justice Initiative (CJI), a youth advocacy and policy project that combats the criminalization of youth and trains youth as peer educators and organizers. She is also on the board of the Girls Best Friend Foundation, which funds programs promoting advocacy and social change for girls in Illinois. Prior to the Northwestern University Legal Clinic, Graves coordinated a Fair Housing advocacy and enforcement project at Access Living that targeted discrimination against people with disabilities in the Chicago metropolitan area. She also worked as a Cook County Public Defender and as a Staff Attorney with the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago.

Clinton is currently a site manager with the Burns Institute. He has worked for more than 13 years with children, adolescents and young adults. Prior to the BI, he worked at Friends of Island Academy (FOIA) in New York City for nine years with a high-risk population of youth in the juvenile justice system. He served as FOIA's Associate Executive Director, supervising an array of service areas, including case management, employment, education, counseling and youth leadership training. Lacey has conducted several workshops and lectures on such issues as youth development programming, gang prevention methodology and mentoring projects for high-risk youth.

Otilio "O.T." Quintero began working as a migrant farm worker at the age of five and went on to graduate and receive a B.A. from the University of California at Santa Cruz and an M.A. from San Jose State University. He has worked and served as a migrant counselor, community college instructor and teatro director. He has developed and directed numerous programs for Cabrillo College, Santa Cruz and Monterey County Office of Education. Mr. Quintero has been responsible for organizing and assisting in the development of over 27 chapters nationally by providing training and technical assistance using the methods, experiences and models developed by Santa Cruz Barrios Unidos. Quintero is currently the Assistant Director for Santa Cruz Barrios Unidos and the National Coalition of Barrios Unidos.

Dr. Juan José Sánchez was born in Brownsville, Texas, and grew up in the poorest barrio of that community. It was a tough place to exist, facing obstacles that included being beat up, losing his father as a teenager and growing up in a large family. Dr. Sánchez learned that through participation in the Golden Gloves boxing program, he could learn the discipline to fight in an acceptable forum and earn respect and self-esteem. The lessons Dr. Sánchez learned early in life carried him to an Ivy League school where he completed his doctorate in education at Harvard University in 1982. Thereafter, he began his life devotion: working with youths whose offenses range from capital offenses to running away from their parents or guardians. Several years later, with little money, plenty of determination and support from those who believed in him, Dr. Sánchez made his dream a reality by founding a community-based, private non-profit agency dedicated to keeping kids out of institutions: The Southwest Key Program, Inc., formerly known as The Texas Key Program, Inc.

Southwest Key has grown from the desire to provide quality, innovative services to a nationally recognized agency known for its creative and caring work serving disadvantaged youth and families. Dr. Sánchez' values are part of Southwest Key, where the importance of respect for self, family and community is stressed. The program employs the "best and brightest" that want to commit themselves to making positive changes in the lives of youth and their families. There is a special call to their employees to bring their history, share their values and give of themselves on behalf of those who face obstacles and who need help with their daily struggles.In 1994, by invitation from Senator Joseph Biden to a U.S. Senate Judiciary committee hearing, Dr. Sánchez spoke of the ever-increasing overrepresentation of minority youth in secure detention. He advised, "Successful rehabilitation requires treatment." He asked that the juvenile justice system change its approach to kids by helping them develop a value system and a sense of how and where to "fight" for a better life, before any child has to be incarcerated.

John Bess is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of The Valley Inc. and a graduate of the Not-For-Profit Institute of the Columbia University Business School. He was also a recipient of the Revson Fellowship at Columbia University. Bess was also a recipient of the 1995 Measure of a Man Award from The New York Conference of the NAACP and was selected as a recipient of WCBS-TV's 1997 Fulfilling The Dream award. He has been described by the New York Times as a "hell raiser" on behalf of young people and was one of 27 New Yorkers selected as "Community Heroes" by the United Way to carry the Olympic Torch through New York City on its way to the Summer Olympics in Atlanta.

Bess founded The Valley Inc. as a comprehensive human service agency for young people in 1979 in order to serve African-American, Latino, Caribbean and Asian youth in New York City’s five boroughs. Under his leadership, the agency has provided services to more than 100,000 at-risk youth aged 6 to 24 as well as their families. Former New York Governor Mario Cuomo called The Valley, "The best youth program in New York State" and Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children's Defense Fund, called The Valley, "The best youth agency in the nation."

Bess serves as the national consultant for The Annie E. Casey Foundation's Rebuilding Communities Initiative in five urban cities regarding youth development. He has conducted workshops for the staffs of Nickelodeon Television in New York and Los Angeles and in the summer of 1995, he headed a delegation to Rome where he facilitated workshops and training during a 10-day youth conference. Bess and The Valley were also profiled in the 1992 PBS documentary "Neglect Not the Children." Bess has received the Increase the Peace Award, the Black Agency Executive Award, the Ellen Lurie Community Service Award for Leadership from the Community Service Society, the Governor's Decade of the Child Award, the Leavy Award from the Freedoms Foundation for Excellence in Private Enterprise Education and a Community Service Award from the Minisink Branch of the New York City Mission Society. He served as co-chair of Children's Week for former New York City Mayor Dinkins in collaboration with the UNICEF World Summit on Children, and was an ambassador to Dinkin's official delegation to South Africa. Bess sits on other boards including the Partnership for After School Education, the Commonwealth Local Development Corp., the National Funding Collaborative on Violence Prevention, The National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS and the Fountain For Youth. He is also a member of the Advisory Boards for the California Wellness Foundation, Def Dance Jam Workshop, and Wadleigh Secondary School.

Roscoe Wilson is the Vice President of Program Development and Marketing for Associated Marine Institutes (AMI). AMI is a non-profit organization founded in 1967 to help delinquent youth by providing alternative education and behavior modification treatment services through marine and wilderness components. More than 30,000 teenagers have attended the AMI Programs. The company contracts with the South Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice and Juvenile Justice Agencies in Georgia, New Mexico, Texas, Virginia, Louisiana, Florida and the Cayman Islands. Wilson has served AMI since 1988 in a variety of capacities. He currently supervises the growth and implementation new programs ranging from young offenders, programs specifically for females and serious violent offenders. He serves as AMI's legislative/governmental liaison. Wilson has a Bachelor of Science in Biology and Physical Education from Benedict College. He is a former College All-American basketball player. He played professional basketball in Europe from 1974-1984, where he also started his graduate study in Global Human Behavior and Scandinavian Linguistics at the University of Stockholm. Upon his retirement from European professional basketball, he coached at the college-level for four years before becoming employed at the Associated Marine Institute.

Was the co-director of the Prison Moratorium Project and conducts trainings on the juvenile justice system.

A member of the Wisconsin State Advisory Group and a member of Freedom Inc in Madison, WI.

Director of the Program for High-Risk Youth at Annie E. Casey Foundation.

Associate Director of Southwest Youth Collaborative, Chicago.

Founder and CEO of Alternative Rehabilitation Communities in  Pennsylvania.

Manager of Self Enhancement, Inc., in Portland.

Director of Milestone Adolescent Counseling Services, which provides youth with counseling and mental health services.