Scott G. Matson is the Associate Director for Policy for the Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking (SMART) in the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs. Mr. Matson oversees the office's work in assisting all states, principal U.S. territories, eligible Indian tribes and the District of Columbia on adopting the standards of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA). In addition, he leads the Sex Offender Management Assessment and Planning Initiative and other research related projects for the office. Mr. Matson also provides training and technical assistance on sex offender registration, notification and other sex offender management issues to the SORNA jurisdictions and to national, state and local government entities and advocacy organizations.
Prior to joining the SMART Office in 2009, Mr. Matson served in a variety of roles focused on improving criminal justice policies and practices. As a program manager at the JEHT Foundation, he developed and managed a criminal justice portfolio of more than 60 grantees on issues such as sentencing and corrections policy, reentry, wrongful convictions and the death penalty. Mr. Matson was the Associate Director, Policy of the Vera Institute of Justice's Center on Sentencing and Corrections, providing state policymakers assistance to improve criminal justice practices while reducing costs. Mr. Matson served as a research associate at the Center for Effective Public Policy's Center for Sex Offender Management where he provided training and technical assistance to a wide range of international, national, state and local audiences on sex offender management issues. Mr. Matson began his career at the Washington State Institute for Public Policy, where he evaluated a series of criminal and juvenile justice policies and programs and presented the findings to the Washington State Legislature. Mr. Matson earned an M.A. in criminology and criminal justice from the University of Maryland, College Park and a B.A. in sociology from Western Washington University.