Jaya Vasandani has been named Associate Director of the Women in Prison Project (WIPP) at the Correctional Association of New York. As Associate Director, she helps to spearhead the Project’s policy advocacy work and prison monitoring program.

Prior to this, Vasandani was the Project’s Associate Director for Prison Monitoring for the past year.  From 2004 to 2007, Vasandani was WIPP’s Project Associate. Before coming to the Correctional Association, Vasandani did federal and state policy advocacy on women’s rights issues, including economic justice, violence against women, reproductive justice and sexual trafficking, as the Policy Associate at the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund (now Legal Momentum), and later at the Center for Women Policy Studies, in Washington, DC.

“We are incredibly lucky to have such a skilled, smart, dedicated, energetic and talented advocate leading the way for WIPP and the Coalition,” said Tamar Kraft-Stolar, WIPP Project Director.

In 2010, Vasandani received her J.D. from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, where she participated in the Immigration Justice Clinic, litigating against the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency and representing individuals facing deportation for criminal convictions in federal immigration court, and the Criminal Defense Clinic, where she represented clients charged with misdemeanors in NY criminal court. She received her Bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in 2001.


The Correctional Association of New York (CA) is a non-profit criminal justice policy advocacy organization based in New York City.  One of four projects at the CA, the Women in Prison Project works to stop the misuse of prison as a response to the social ills that drive crime, to ensure that prison conditions for women are humane and just, and to create a criminal justice system that addresses women’s specific needs and that treats people and their families with fairness, dignity and respect.  Under the CA’s legislative mandate, the Project has the unique authority to monitor conditions inside correctional facilities that house women in New York State.  The Project also manages ReConnect, a semi-annual leadership training program for women recently released from prison and jail, and coordinates the Coalition for Women Prisoners, a statewide alliance of more than 1,600 individuals and over 100 organizations.  The full Coalition meets monthly, as does its three sub-committees:  Reentry/Conditions, Violence Against Women and Incarcerated Mothers.

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