Michele Deitch is a distinguished senior lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin, holding a joint appointment at both the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs (LBJ) and the Law School. She is also former policy director of the Texas sentencing commission.
She directs LBJ's Prison and Jail Innovation Lab (PJIL), a policy resource centre focused on the safe and humane treatment of people in custody.
She is an attorney who has worked for over 35 years on criminal justice and juvenile justice policy issues with state and local government officials, corrections administrators, judges and advocates. She specializes in independent oversight of correctional institutions, prison and jail conditions, managing youth in custody, and youth in the adult criminal justice system.
Deitch co-chairs the American Bar Association's Subcommittee on Correctional Oversight, and helped draft the ABA's Standards on the Treatment of Prisoners.
