Denise Tomasini-Joshi

Denise Tomasini-Joshi

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Denise Tomasini-Joshi serves as an associate legal officer in the national criminal justice reform program and deals specifically with pretrial detention issues. Denise is a 1999 graduate of the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs and a 1998 graduate of Columbia University School of Law. Currently she works on helping develop alternatives to pretrial detention via policy and litigation. In her previous post, Denise served as a senior policy analyst with the Council of State Government’s, Criminal Justice Division a bipartisan forum, where she was in charge of the Mental Health Courts project (MHC). Part of the landmark Criminal Justice/Mental Health Consensus Project the MHC worked to improve the response to people with mental illness involved in the criminal justice system. Through her work with the MHC, Denise contributed to multiple nationwide initiatives, such as the Mental Health Court Learning Sites Program and the Criminal Justice and Mental Health Judges Leadership Initiatives, and presented in conferences nationwide on issues of people with mental illness and alternatives to incarceration. Prior to CSG Denise worked as an attorney at the Columbia University / Goddard-Riverside, Tenant Assistance project and at MFY Legal Service’s Mental Health Law project.