Allison Turkel

Allison Turkel serves as a policy advisor in the SMART (Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering and Tracking) Office for the U.S Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs. Prior to coming to the SMART office Ms. Turkel served as the Director of the National District Attorneys Association’s (NDAA) National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse (NCPCA), where she managed and supervised program activities and staff.  She also provided training and technical assistance nationwide and in the territories to prosecutors, law enforcement, child protection workers, social workers, medical personnel, forensic interviewers and other multi-disciplinary team members on child abuse, maltreatment, sexual exploitation, computer-facilitated crimes against children and domestic violence.  She authored or co-authored four National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse Updates: Strategies for Interviewing Child Victims of Human Trafficking, "And Then He Choked Me": Understanding and Investigating Strangulation, Strategies for Handling Cases where Children Witness Domestic Violence and Domestic Violence Basics for Child Abuse Professionals.  Prior to her appointment as the Director of NCPCA, Ms. Turkel served as the Chief of Training for NDAA’s Child Abuse programs, which included NCPCA and the National Child Protection Training Center (NCPTC).  Prior to coming to NDAA, Ms. Turkel was 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. Before that, she was an Assistant District Attorney in the New York County District Attorneys Office for nine and a half years.  She tried a wide variety of felony cases including narcotics, child physical and sexual abuse and homicides.  Prior to becoming a prosecutor, Ms. Turkel was a police officer for 8 years. She served in patrol, 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.