Jac A. Charlier, MPA

Executive Director, TASC's Center for Health and Justice

Jac Charlier leads TASC’s (Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities) Center for Health and Justice (CHJ) as the Executive Director. CHJ is an internationally recognized non-profit providing justice policy and systems solutions to reduce crime. Jac is a crime reduction expert who specializes in deflection and diversion strategies for vulnerable populations to interrupt the cycle of crime and drug use by bridging the criminal justice and behavioral health systems from police to parole and points in-between. Jac is a national leader in the growing movement of deflection and pre-arrest diversion (PAD), as well as the co-founder of the Police, Treatment and Community Collaborative (PTACC), which provides national vision, leadership, and voice of the newly emerging field.

A leader in justice system strategies to fight the national opioid epidemic, Jac led the development of a framework for preventing and reducing opioid overdose and death among justice populations, as well as community-based post-overdose response strategies for law enforcement. Jac is a member of the National Opioid Library Advisory Board. Jac is a faculty member with the National Judicial College for the Justice Leaders Systems Change Initiative (JLSCI), a court systems change approach to reducing drug use and recidivism through accountability and treatment. He joined TASC in 2011 after 16 years of service in the Illinois State Parole Division having earned the rank of Deputy Chief. He started the Division’s first domestic violence reduction teams as well as the first women’s gender specific trained officers. An adjunct faculty member as several Chicago-area universities, a military veteran and a member of the American Legion, Jac is also the Chairman of the Board of Chicago Veterans. Jac received his MPA from The Ohio State University and his BS in mathematics from the University of Illinois at Urbana.