Allison Turkel is a supervisory program manager in the Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking (SMART) in the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs (OJP). She manages and oversees all of SMART's grant functions. She brings a wealth of experience in law enforcement and victims' issues to this work.
Prior to this reassignment, Ms. Turkel was Deputy Director for the Federal, International, and Tribal Division at the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) in OJP. In this capacity, she oversaw the Antiterrorism Emergency Assistance Program, including the International Terrorism Victim Expense Reimbursement Program, National Mass Violence Victimization Center and OVC's Mass Violence victim support program. She oversaw OVC's coordination with and funding of federal partners to provide victim services. She also ran the tribal victims' services program, which provides victim services to American Indian/Alaska Native communities, including the Tribal Victim Services Set Aside Program, Children Justice Act projects and OVC's Tribal Financial Management Center.
Prior to OVC, Ms. Turkel served as a Senior Policy Advisor in the SMART Office, where she worked with Native American tribes to implement the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act and with the military on sex offender issues. She helped develop the Tribal Access Program.
Prior to SMART, Ms. Turkel was the Director of the National District Attorneys Association's (NDAA) National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse (NCPCA), where she managed program activities and staff. She trained and provided technical assistance nationwide and in the territories to prosecutors, law enforcement, child protection workers, social workers, medical personnel, forensic interviewers and other multidisciplinary team members on child abuse, maltreatment, sexual exploitation, computer facilitated crimes against children and domestic violence. She authored numerous articles, including the article "‘And Then He Choked Me': Investigating and Prosecuting Strangulation Cases" and the sexual abuse section of the "Preparing a Case for Court" chapter in "Child Maltreatment, A Clinical Guide and Photographic Reference," Third Edition (2005).
Prior to her appointment as the Director of NCPCA, Ms. Turkel served as a senior attorney and as Chief of Training for NDAA's child abuse programs, which included NCPCA and the National Child Protection Training Center. Ms. Turkel oversaw the national, regional and local training conferences and programs, as well as supervised all staff training.
Prior to joining NDAA, Ms. Turkel was a prosecutor for over 11 years, serving in New York and Illinois. She was an Assistant District Attorney in the New York County District Attorney's Office for more than nine years, where she tried a wide variety of felony cases, including narcotics, child physical and sexual abuse, and homicides. And she served as an Assistant State's Attorney in McLean County, Illinois, for 18 months, where she prosecuted felony domestic violence cases, including severe physical abuse cases of children.
Prior to becoming a prosecutor, Ms. Turkel was a police officer for eight years. She served in patrol and as a plainclothes undercover officer investigating high-crime areas and rose to the level of lieutenant. She also served as the training lieutenant in charge of in-house training and firearms instruction.
Ms. Turkel received her B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and her J.D. from Temple University. Ms. Turkel also is a graduate of the Federal Executive Institute: Leadership for a Democratic Society Program.