Alicia is a Public Defender for Pulaski County. Her primary focus area is criminal justice reform. Being a defense attorney, she has had the unique opportunity to observe the system and notated the areas where we can improve in areas relating to disproportionate sentencing, mental health and substance abuse. Her goal is to collaborate with other agencies to expand current DHS contracts to reduce mass incarceration. The expansion of contracts would allow individuals to receive meaningful preventive and intervention services and allow for an expansion in mental health and substance abuse services. Alicia sees success as establishing a means of collecting data. When she began to discuss the establishment of a Veterans Court, no one listened until she presented data to reflect that veterans were being denied available services and with the help of the Veterans Administration illustrated how services would reduce the rate of recidivism with that subgroup.