Leadership of Justice Consultants, LLC
Stephen Lanza (founder) is a community justice and human development professional with over 25 years’ experience in human development and domestic violence interventions and 18 years in community corrections programs. He is an Executive Board Member of the International Community Corrections Association – the leading organization representing community corrections. He is on the faculty of the University of Connecticut at Stamford, Department of Human Development & Family Studies, and Norwalk Community College, Criminal Justice Program. He also is a Visiting Lecturer in the Human Rights Program at Trinity College, in Hartford, Connecticut.
For 16 years he served as the Executive Director of a leading community corrections organization focused on innovation and impact in areas of adult reentry, behavioral health in community corrections, justice involved youth, children of incarcerated parents, and interventions for domestic violence offenders. He led efforts to develop, implement, fund, and research a model reentry program, which after 3.5 years of Yale University, School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry research found significant and sustained reductions in rates of recidivism.
He has served on Connecticut’s Batterer Intervention Programming and Standards Subcommittee where he helped develop best-practices state standards for DV offender intervention; and on the Connecticut Sentencing Commission, Recidivism Reduction Committee where he assisted with investigation and development of policy and statutory recommendations. He currently serves on Connecticut’s Domestic Violence Offender Program Standards Advisory Council and as a Special Master for the Superior Court’s Regional Family Trail Docket.
Among his publications, a recent co-authored paper received the 2014 American Journal of Public Health Paper of the Year Award. His peer reviewed publications are in the areas of continuity of health care in prisoner reentry, strengths-based approach to prisoner reentry, and masculine norms and peers supports effecting incarcerated African American males and mental health. Other publications include a co-authored chapter in the landmark publication “What Causes Men’s Violence Against Women” edited by Michele Harway and James O’Neil; research reports on effectiveness of domestic violence interventions and interagency collaboration; and editing the Family Violence Education Program Curriculum for the State of Connecticut.
Honors include the 2010 The Connecticut Bar Association’s Liberty Bell Award, the Connecticut Association for Marriage & Family Therapy’s Service to Families Award, and multiple Special Recognitions from Senator Richard Blumenthal and Congressman Jim Himes.