Dr. Amy Dezember is a Senior Associate with Justice System Partners (JSP). Her research focuses on evaluating and improving legal decision-making and court practices, including plea bargaining, sentencing, youth experiences in court, indigent defense, and other court processes. She also has a particular interest in evidence-based criminal justice practices and working with practitioners to translate research into effective policies. She has nearly ten years of experience leading and supporting research evaluations with local, state, and federal agencies. She has worked on several large-scale research studies and has experience with research design and development, project management, data collection, data analysis, and analytical writing and dissemination. She has co-authored numerous technical reports, peer-reviewed publications, and book chapters and regularly presents her work to practitioners and academics at national conferences. She holds a PhD in Criminology, Law and Society from George Mason University.