Jack Calhoun founded and served as President of the National Crime Prevention Council for 20 years. His work at NCPC included award-winning public service advertising, training and technical assistance, demonstration programs, publications and management of the 4500-member Crime Prevention Coalition of America – leaders representing constituencies on the local, state and national levels. He “retired” as President and CEO in May of 2004.
While at NCPC, Jack revolutionized crime prevention by shifting its definition to encompass building vital communities that don’t produce crime via programs he helped design such as Community Responses to Drug Abuse, Youth as Resources, Comprehensive Communities Programs, and Embedding Prevention in State Policy. Under Jack’s leadership, NCPC became the nation’s resource center for crime prevention and community building.
In 1976, Jack was appointed by the governor of Massachusetts to the post of Commissioner of the Department of Youth Service where he also chaired the Adolescent Task Force and State of the Family Task Force. In l979, President Carter named him to be the United States Commissioner of the Administration for Children, Youth and Families (ACYF), where he oversaw such programs as Head Start, Child Abuse and Neglect, Foster Care, and Adoption Opportunities. While there, he created the Office for Families and the Office of Domestic Violence Prevention. Subsequently, he served as Vice President of the Child Welfare League of America. Early in his career Jack created employment, court diversion and restitution programs for youth as Executive Director of Justice Resource Institute, Vice President of Technical Development Corporation and Special Assistant/Program Director at Action for Boston Community Development.
While in Massachusetts, he drafted and saw through to passage the nation’s first pre-trial diversion law. Under President Carter, he helped to write and then saw Congress enact the landmark Child Welfare and Adoption Act of 1980, called by Dr. Wade Horn, current ACYF Commissioner, “one of the three most important laws affecting children in the last 100 years.”
Jack has lectured at major universities and published many articles and editorials. He is in demand as a keynote speaker here and abroad. Included among his recent speeches are the opening keynote to a 60-nation conference on Safe Communities in Bergen, Norway, a major address to Mexican legislators and lawyers, keynoter for the 20th Anniversary of the San Diego Children’s Commission, and closing keynoter for the National Conference of Family and Juvenile Court Judges. He has testified frequently before city councils, state legislators and Congress, serves on many boards such as the Committee on Public Issues for the Advertising Council, Inc., the National Advisory Board for the National Council of Churches and President of the International Centre for the Prevention of Crime. A frequent media guest, he has appeared on the “Today Show” and “Larry King Live.” He has received numerous awards such as the l998 Award of Recognition from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and the 2004 Lifetime Achievement Award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Center for Substance Abuse Prevention.
In “retirement” he helped design, launch and manage the 13-California City Gang Prevention Network, and has just completed a book Hope Matters.
Listed in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in the World, Jack holds a BA from Brown University, a Master’s in Theology from the Episcopal Divinity School, a Master’s in Public Administration with honors from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Heidelberg College. |
