Clinton Lacey

President and CEO, Credible Messenger Mentoring Movement (CM3)

Clinton Lacey is the president and CEO of the Credible Messenger Mentoring Movement (CM3), a newly launched organization focusing on supporting community rooted natural leaders who have successfully navigated their own prior involvement in the justice system.

Prior to the recent launch of CM3, Lacey served as Director of the District of Columbia Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services (DYRS), Washington DC’s cabinet-level juvenile justice agency, where he was appointed by Washington, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser in 2015.

Before joining DYRS, Clinton was appointed to the New York City Department of Probation as the Deputy Commissioner for adult operations in 2011. In this capacity, he led a series of innovative initiatives, including the Neighborhood Opportunity Networks (NeONs) and Arches Transformative Mentoring (the first iteration of Credible Messenger Mentoring).

Other positions held by Lacey over his 30-year career include project manager with the W. Haywood Burns Institute, addressing racial, ethnic, and gender disparities in several jurisdictions around the nation (2005-2010); director of the Youth Justice Program at Vera Institute of Justice, where he led an initiative to build collaborative relationships between community-based youth advocates and system based juvenile justice officials from various jurisdictions around the nation (2004-2005); and associate executive director of Friends of Island Academy, where developed services for 16 to 24-year-olds at Riker’s Island in New York City (1992 – 2004).’

He has a B.A. in Latin American and Caribbean History from Herbert H. Lehman College (City University of New York) and is a graduate of the Institute for Not-for-Profit Management at Columbia University. Clinton is married, and the father of two sons and a daughter and has one granddaughter.