Veleria N. Lawson
Executive Director
Juvenile Justice Commission

Veleria N. Lawson was nominated by Governor Jon S. Corzine to serve as Executive Director of the Juvenile Justice Commission and was confirmed by the Senate on March 3, 2008.

Prior to joining the JJC, Ms. Lawson served as an associate member of the New Jersey State Parole Board.  She was appointed to that position in January 2004 and assigned to the juvenile panel where she worked directly with the Juvenile Justice Commission and its programs to rehabilitate juvenile offenders. She also worked with government and community groups to help ensure juvenile offenders have access to programs and support designed to aid in their successful reentry into society.

A licensed clinical social worker, Lawson also has worked during her extensive career as a school social worker in Middletown and Lakewood and at the Arthur Brisbane Child Treatment Center in Wall Township.  She was a school social worker for more than 19 years for the Middletown Board of Education, serving on child study teams. She had similar responsibilities as a child study team member for the Lakewood Township Board of Education for four years before working in Middletown.

Lawson started her career in New Jersey in January 1974 as a social worker at the University of Medicine and Dentistry in Newark, providing clinical services to clients with psychosocial problems.

Lawson, who lives in Manalapan, received a bachelor of arts in sociology from Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1972, and earned a masters degree in social work in 1973 from the Howard University School of Social Work in Washington, D.C.