NNSC ANNOUNCES NEW EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
The National Network for Safe Communities (NNSC) is pleased to announce our new Executive Director, Sasha R. Cotton. Sasha joined NNSC in September 2022 as a Senior Strategy Director and has spent the past fifteen months getting to know NNSC’s partners, work, and staff, with a vision and plan to strengthen and grow the organization.
“Sasha Cotton is both a long-time friend and colleague, and one of the most important figures in the growing national field of evidence-based violence prevention,” said NNSC founder David M. Kennedy. “I’m enormously excited to see where her experience, imagination, and wisdom will lead us.”
Before joining NNSC, Sasha led violence prevention work in Minneapolis for nearly a decade, including designing and serving as the first director of the Minneapolis Office of Violence Prevention (OVP) in the Minneapolis Health Department. During her time as the Minneapolis’ OVP Director, Executive Director Cotton oversaw the design and implementation of a comprehensive community violence intervention approach which includes the NNSC’s Group Violence Intervention strategy, a hospital based violence intervention program, and street outreach workers. During her tenure, she played a crucial role in the city as it faced the murder of George Floyd and the unrest that followed.
Prior to serving as the OVP Director, Sasha served in a wide range of positions in government and nonprofit organizations focusing on community and domestic violence. She is currently representing Minnesota on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
“Its an honor and privilege to be named Executive Director of NNSC and to be able to work with its extraordinary staff,” said Sasha Cotton. “NNSC has been critically important in the history of evidence-based violence prevention, and its core work can and should incorporate the very best of what the evolving violence prevention ecosystem has to offer. I look forward to this exciting new chapter.”
Please join us in congratulating our new Executive Director of the National Network for Safe Communities, Sasha Cotton!
About NNSC
The National Network for Safe Communities is a center based at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. NNSC reduces violence, builds trust, and transforms public safety in partnership with communities around the world. We support cities implementing proven strategic interventions to reduce violence and improve public safety. Beginning with a focus on gun violence almost thirty years ago, NNSC has applied its framework to effectively address a range of seemingly intractable public safety problems in dozens of cities in the U.S. and in international contexts.
About John Jay College of Criminal Justice
An international leader in educating for justice, John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York is a Hispanic Serving Institution and Minority Serving Institution to undergraduate and graduate students from more than 135 nations. John Jay is home to faculty and research centers at the forefront of advancing criminal and social justice reform. In teaching, scholarship and research, the College engages the theme of justice and explores fundamental human desires for fairness, equality and the rule of law. For more information, visit jjay.cuny.edu.
