Addressing Disparities in Our Criminal Justice System
Speaker
- Stephanie Regular, Contra Costa County Public Defender Office
Summary
July was Minority Mental Health Awareness Month. For our General Meeting, our focus was on addressing disparities in the criminal justice system. Our Speaker was Stephanie Regular from the Contra Costa County Public Defender Office, joined by NAMI CC West County Coordinator Eddie Morris and Executive Director Gigi Crowder. There was an invitation for other criminal justice advocates as well as others who had been unfairly treated and criminalized, especially individuals from BIPOC communities.
About Stephanie Regular
Stephanie Regular has been a Public Defender for 20 years and had supervised the Mental Health Unit in the Contra Costa County Public Defender Office. She advocated on a local and statewide basis to reform practice and policy for mentally ill and intellectually disabled individuals in the criminal legal system. Stephanie graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1997 and earned her JD from the University of California, Davis in 2000. She was a board member, chair of the mental health committee, and member of the legislative committee for the California Public Defender Association (CPDA). As a member of the CPDA legislative committee, she had sponsored legislation to improve outcomes for those suffering from mental illness and charged with a criminal offense. Stephanie had also successfully litigated mental health issues in superior court and the California Court of Appeal.
