Hildy Saizow

Ms. Hildy Saizow is a criminologist with more than 30 years of experience in research, policy analysis, and training and technical assistance to law enforcement agencies. Her expertise includes criminal and juvenile justice, violence prevention, collaboration and partnership building, qualitative research and analysis, and community planning and assessment. Since 2009, she has served as senior subject matter expert (SME) for the BJA Smart Policing Initiative, focusing on community outreach and collaboration issues for police departments funded through the program. For four years, she was a diagnostic specialist for the OJP Diagnostic Center, collecting and analyzing data on criminal justice problems for local jurisdictions in order to provide evidence-based recommendations and solutions. She also served as subject matter expert for the BJA Body-Worn Camera program, assisting rural police agencies with policy and implementation issues, and for the COPS Office Safer Communities through Precision Policing Initiative. For 10 years, she provided technical assistance to communities nationwide designated as Weed and Seed sites that required assistance forming and sustaining collaborative partnerships, developing collaborative strategies, and working with challenging community stakeholders.

Due to her expertise in gun violence prevention, Ms. Saizow served as President of Arizonans for Gun Safety for 10 years, facilitated the development of a replication of Chicago Ceasefire in Phoenix, Arizona, and met with Vice President Joe Biden in January 2013 to give input and recommendations to the Task Force on Gun Violence.

Prior to these activities, Ms. Saizow provided technical assistance to local communities in Arizona forming collaborative partnerships to address early care and education for young children and their families. In response to a request from the Arizona Community Foundation, she examined and identified success factors for an ongoing collaborative partnership addressing juvenile justice issues in a high-risk community in Phoenix. Furthermore, Ms. Saizow directed a comprehensive community assessment examining community factors and potential solutions to the over-representation of minority youth in the Maricopa County juvenile justice system.

While living abroad, Ms. Saizow served as a community/social planner for a large local government in Australia and worked for an urban planning firm assessing the economic, environmental, and community impacts of a new highway and railroad corridor in Southeast Queensland. 

In the early 1990s, Ms. Saizow served as public safety advisor to the City Manager for the District of Columbia, where she worked closely with managers in the police, fire, and emergency services departments and correctional agencies addressing a wide range of public safety problems and concerns. She also served as Executive Director of the Justice, Research, and Statistics Association (formerly Criminal Justice Statistics Association) in Washington, DC, where she developed programs to support criminal justice analysts and policy makers and obtained numerous grants from the Department of Justice.