Gabriella Priest

Gabriella Priest is a Senior Associate at the nonprofit Justice System Partners (JSP), where she manages community corrections organizational change and coaching projects across the United States. For the past two decades, Gabriella has partnered with practitioners, policymakers, academics, and impacted individuals and their families to improve the criminal legal system, focusing on evidence-based practices and equity.  

Gabriella was previously the Program Director of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management (PCJ), and worked for 11 years at the nonprofit Community Resources for Justice (CRJ). As CRJ’s Director of Innovation, Implementation, and Development, she was responsible for oversight of its Massachusetts community-based reentry programs and its Social Justice Services (SJS) training academy. Through CRJ's Crime and Justice Institute (CJI) division, Gabriella led youth and adult justice system policy reform and implementation efforts in several states– Georgia, Utah, Kansas, Oregon, West Virginia, and Kentucky– as part of the Justice Reinvestment Initiative. These reforms improved outcomes, reduced prison and juvenile system populations, and averted over $700 million in projected state costs.

Gabriella is an adjunct faculty member at Suffolk University, teaching undergraduate and graduate courses on crime and justice. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Sociology and Criminology and a Master of Science in Criminal Justice from Suffolk University. Gabriella has been on the Board of Directors of the International Community Justice Association (ICJA) since 2020, and in 2019 received the Inaugural “Emerging Leaders” award from ICJA.