Laurie Robinson has been nominated by President Obama to assume her former job as Assistant Attorney General heading the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Justice Programs. The agency now is administering nearly $3 billion in anticrime funds for states and localities under the federal economic stimulus law. Robinson has been heading the agency in an acting capacity since Jan. 28. It includes the federal crime research and statistics agencies, as well as the Bureau of Justice Assistance, Office for Victims of Crime and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention..
Robinson held the same job from 1993 to 2000, where she oversaw the largest increase in federal spending on criminal justice research in U.S. history. Between 2001 and January of this year, she was a distinguished senior scholar in the University of Pennsylvania's Jerry Lee Center of Criminology, and directed its Forum on Crime & Justice. In 2004 Robinson launched a Criminology Master of Science Program at Penn. Before 1993, Robinson she directed the American Bar Association’s Section of Criminal Justice for 14 years.