RED Team
The racial and ethnic disparities (RED) team at American University (AU) uses research, policy development, and training and technical assistance (TTA) to work with justice system stakeholders to rectify racial and ethnic disparities in treatment courts.
Matthew Collinson
Principal Investigator / Project Director
Matt Collinson is an adjunct professor in the School of Public Affairs’ department of Justice Law and Criminology, where he teaches an undergraduate class on the history and purpose of the legal system, and a graduate level course on pre-trial justice, jails, bail and risk assessments.
All his classes explore the role of racism and racial bias in the administration of justice, and challenge students to fight for a more equitable, less racist and radically reimagined system of justice.
Matt for his “day job” is a project director for Justice Initiatives in the School of Public Affairs. In this role Matt directs several translational research and TTA projects focused on addressing racial disparities in treatment courts across the country. This work includes using AU’s Racial and Ethnic Disparities Assessment tool to help courts to understand how their current policies and practices may be unintentionally contributing to racially biased outcomes, and then developing unique and tailored training and technical assistance programs for courts, jurisdictions and states to reduce racism, disparities and bias in their programs.
Matt previously worked as the Director of Training Programs at JustLeadershipUSA, one of the few criminal legal system reform organizations led exclusively by formerly incarcerated individuals, where he
provided training and program leadership to over three hundred formerly incarcerated and legal system impacted leaders. Recent publications: Color in the Court: Using the Racial and Ethnic Disparities (RED) Program Assessment Tool to Promote Equitable and Inclusive Treatment Court Practice (2023).
Zephi Francis
Principal Investigator / Project Director
Zephi Francis is a Project Director in the School of Public Affairs and an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Sociology at American University. Since 2017, he has been involved in research on treatment court operations, including investigating racial and ethnic disparities in programs.
Zephi led the development and deployment of the Racial and Ethnic Disparities (RED) Program Assessment Tool (https://redtool.org/), which is a web-based assessment to assist treatment courts identify and alleviate racial and ethnic disparities in their systems and processes. Currently, he oversees the Racial and Ethnic Disparities Initiative (REDI) funded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance. REDI is a project that utilizes research, policy development, and training and technical assistance (TTA) to work with justice system
stakeholders to make treatment courts more inclusive. Zephi’s research has been published in the Drug Court Review, the Journal of Social Work Practice in the Addictions, and Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly. To learn more about his portfolio of projects, please visit Justice Initiatives
(https://www.american.edu/spa/justice-initiatives/).
Preeti Menon
Principal Investigator / Project Director
As a Practitioner-in Residence at American University’s School of Public Affairs (SPA), Preeti Menon oversees training and technical assistance initiatives. She is passionate about bringing collaboration and communication as important bases for the success of any initiative.
She has extensive experience in justice system policy development and criminal justice program operations as well as project management. With over twenty-years of experience in working with treatment courts, she has worked closely on several treatment court initiatives, including the development of the first Racial and Ethnic Disparities Program Assessment Tool for treatment courts. She is currently working with local treatment
courts across the country interested in administering the tool. She is the Principal Investigator and project director of the Supreme Court of Ohio’s Racial and Ethnic Disparities Initiative. She has presented at several national and local conferences, including the National Association of Drug Court Professionals’ Annual Conferences, Tribal Healing to Wellness Court Enhancement Training, the National Association of Counties, and the National Sheriff’s Association.
Providing tangible leadership tools & skills, she worked with JustLeadershipUSA (JLUSA) on a leadership training curriculum for returning citizens who are emerging leaders heading efforts in community organizing and advocacy. During her professional career, she has also worked on several problem- solving courts initiatives, which includes overseeing, MOSAICS (Maximizing OVC’s Survivor Assistance in Court Settings), the National Drug Court Resource Center, Juvenile Drug Treatment Courts TTA, transferring and launching the Veterans Treatment Courts newsletter, consulting on a community court mentoring project for the Center for Court Innovation (CCI), and supporting a drug court training and technical assistance (TTA) project. In addition, she created the framework for Right to Counsel National Campaign and demonstrated the importance of collaboration at all levels. Prior to joining American University, she served as a consultant with AU for BJA’s Drug Court TTA Project and, previously, at the
U.S. Department of Justice for eight years as a Policy Advisor on Adjudication for the BJA and as a Social Science Program Specialist for OJJDP. Prior to joining the federal government, she worked as a Planning Specialist on contracts with the MD Dept of Juvenile Justice and the U.S. DOJ, National Institute of Justice.
She has co-authored and provided writing and editing support for research and analytical papers on treatment courts, criminal justice case management and integration. In addition, while working with Federal Data Corporation as a Research Assistant, she provided research support for the supplement to the Surgeon General’s Report on Mental Health: Culture, Race, and Ethnicity, and the Surgeon General’s Report on Youth Violence.
Steve Collins, MPP
Program Coordinator
Steven Collins is a Program Coordinator at Justice Initiatives in American University’s School of Public Affairs. He currently works on the office’s Racial and Ethnic Disparities Initiative (REDI) project. He previously worked on the National Drug Court Resource Center and Adult Drug Court Technical Assistance projects. Steven received his Master’s in Public Policy and B.A. in Political Science from American University’s School of Public Affairs.
