Amy Bach

Amy Bach is the Founder, Executive Director, and President of Measures for Justice, an organization that measures criminal justice performance by collecting, cleaning, and coding county-level criminal justice data to transform America's broken incarceration system. Founded as a follow-up to her acclaimed book Ordinary Injustice: How America Holds Court, which won the 2010 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, Measures for Justice addresses a critical gap: despite the U.S. leading the industrialized world in incarceration—with only 5% of the world's population but nearly a quarter of its prison population—there is a fundamental lack of data to determine whether spending is reducing crime, improving fairness, or lessening recidivism. State and federal spending on corrections has grown 400% over the past 20 years, becoming one of the fastest-growing line items in state budgets, yet the system disproportionately impacts nonwhite communities, with one in six Black men having spent time in prison compared to one in 39 white men.

Believing that "you cannot change what you can't see," Bach's solution begins with the facts—supplying legislators, practitioners, and changemakers with the data they need to channel resources appropriately, focus reform efforts wisely, and replicate best practices. Her book Ordinary Injustice demonstrated how well-intentioned prosecutors, judges, and defense attorneys can become so inured to patterns of problems that they no longer see them. Through Measures for Justice, Bach is creating a foundation that stands to affect millions of Americans and serves as a model that can be exported to countries worldwide, ensuring the criminal justice system works equally well for everyone. Her groundbreaking work provides the transparency and accountability necessary to build a fairer, more effective justice system.