Our Board

Clinique Chapman is an Associate Director of Policy and Advocacy at the Vera Institute of Justice with the Restoring Promise initiative where she works on prison reform.. Prior to joining Vera, Clinique was a Program Manager with the DC Department of Corrections, where she worked to shift correctional culture from the inside-out, by way of program implementation and developing a behavioral health team. Clinique’s passion and skills were honed as a forensic social worker with The Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia where she spent a decade as a sentencing advocate and mitigation specialist, specializing in youth who were tried in adult court.  Clinique has also consulted on mitigation death penalty cases.

Clinique is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Howard University School of Social Work where she teaches criminal justice to the next generation of change agents.  Clinique serves as an Advisory Board Member for Free Minds Book Club and Writing Workshop.  She received her BA and MSW (with a concentration in criminal justice) from Howard University and is a licensed clinical social worker.

What is one thing you would like to change about the D.C.’s criminal legal system this year? 

Raising the age of adult prosecution and overall less reliance on the oppressive justice system to remedy oppressive and systemic issues.