Jackie Lacey

Jackie Lacey

Jacquelyn Phillips Lacey is an American politician who served as the District Attorney of Los Angeles County from December 3, 2012 to December 7, 2020. She is the first woman, and first African-American, to serve as LA District Attorney since the office was created in 1850. Lacey was born in Los Angeles and raised in the Crenshaw neighborhood. She attended Dorsey High School, graduated from the University of California, Irvine with a degree in psychology in 1979, and graduated from University of Southern California Law School in 1982.

About Jackie Lacey in brief

Summary Jackie LaceyJacquelyn Phillips Lacey is an American politician who served as the District Attorney of Los Angeles County from December 3, 2012 to December 7, 2020. She is the first woman, and first African-American, to serve as LA District Attorney since the office was created in 1850. As a district attorney, she has been described as part of a \”tough-on-crime\” movement. Lacey was born in Los Angeles and raised in the Crenshaw neighborhood. She attended Dorsey High School, graduated from the University of California, Irvine with a degree in psychology in 1979, and graduated from University of Southern California Law School in 1982. She has pioneered groundbreaking mental health efforts, diverting those with mental illness out of jails and into the mental health system. She also fought human sex trafficking to protect women and children, safeguarded seniors from financial elder abuse, pushed to ban private prisons and reform the cash bail system, cracked down fraudsters who prey on immigrants as well as polluters who harm the environment, and threaten the health and livelihood of LA County residents. In 2014, Lacey announced an alternative sentencing program aimed at diverting mentally ill, low-level offenders from jail into treatment. In 2015, she announced the creation of the Conviction Review Unit dedicated to pursuing the innocence of people imprisoned for serious felonies, if new evidence is discovered.

When it opened, it opened a formal investigation into new evidence. In early 2019, she launched the DA’s first mental health division – the first for California and possibly U.S. – which seeks opportunities to expand treatment and other services for mentally ill inmates in the criminal justice system. The project secured USD 150 million in funding from LA County, ensured the opening of urgent care as an alternative for certain arrestees, and helped create a new county office of diversion and reentry centers. In 2016, she established a bimonthly Fraud Alerts campaign to educate the public about common fraud schemes targeting seniors, including counterfeit drug scams and counterfeit Medicare ripoffs. She launched a campaign against senior centers targeting the elderly, in which volunteers would go to senior centers, nursing homes and other places to give presentations about how to avoid scams and pass out literature to pass out to home-bound seniors. In 2017, she created a new unit consisting of more than a dozen members who are sent to the sites of accidents involving deaths, injuries and threats to the environment. In 2011, she was named Chief Deputy District Attorney – second-in-command to the District attorney. She was sworn in as District Attorney on December3, 2012 by outgoing attorney Steve Cooley.