Skip Ribbon Commands
Skip to main content
An Official Pennsylvania Government Website
Translate
Begin Main Content Area

About PCCD

PCCD's mission is to enhance the quality, coordination, and planning within the criminal and juvenile justice systems, to facilitate the delivery of services to victims of crime, and to increase the safety of our communities. 

Established by law in 1978, the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD)  serves as the justice planning and policymaking agency for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. By bringing together a wide range of experts in the fields of criminal and juvenile justice, victim services, and related professions, PCCD coordinates the collective examination of problems, proposes solutions, and evaluates the impact of those solutions. Among its primary functions, PCCD:

  • Facilitates partnerships among federal, state, and local policymakers;
  • Fosters interagency coordination and cooperation;
  • Develops and coordinates policy issues;
  • Provides statewide criminal statistical and analytical services;
  • Fosters community-based initiatives in the areas of delinquency prevention and offender reintegration;
  • Promotes the use of information technology and information sharing to enhance operational effectiveness in criminal justice agencies; and
  • Grants federal and state funds to provide monies to support best practices and innovation.

You can learn more about the agency's strategic priorities as well as its programs, activities, and initiatives here.

PCCD's Advisory Committees & Training Boards

To better inform the Commission in its work, PCCD is comprised of six Advisory Committees, the School Safety and Security Committee, and two Training Boards.

Accordion ‭[1]‬


Expand AllClick here for a more accessible version


PCCD's Internal Offices

In addition to the Advisory Committees and Boards, PCCD is staffed by four Offices and underlying units that facilitate Advisory Committee work and implement the actions taken by the Commission. These offices include:

Accordion ‭[2]‬


Expand AllClick here for a more accessible version


Our Leadership


​Lt. Gov. Austin Davis is the youngest lieutenant governor in the country and the first Black lieutenant governor in Commonwealth history. Inspired by the history-makers who came before – leaders like Pennsylvania House Speaker K. Leroy Irvis and state Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Nix Jr. – Austin is determined to motivate a new generation of public servants to break even more barriers.

Austin’s path to the second-highest office in the Commonwealth started in McKeesport, a former steel town in western Pennsylvania. Growing up, he watched his mom – a hairdresser for more than 40 years – juggle raising a family with putting food on the table, and he watched his dad work hard as a union bus driver.

At the age of 16, Austin was living in McKeesport, when gun violence came to their doorstep. After a shooting in his neighborhood, he got involved in his community, starting a youth advisory council with the mayor and a youth gun violence prevention program at his high school.

Austin went on to study political science at the University of Pittsburgh, becoming a first-generation college graduate and then pursuing a career in public service. He returned to McKeesport to work for the Allegheny County executive. In that role he helped create the first violence prevention office within the Allegheny Department of Health.

By the age of 21, he had earned praise from the Tribune-Review, which called him “a veteran at the politics of helping others.”

In 2018, Austin successfully ran for the state House of Representatives to represent the Mon Valley and his hometown of McKeesport, becoming the first African American to represent his legislative district.

As lieutenant governor, Austin presides over the Pennsylvania Senate, chairs the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons, leads the Local Government Advisory Committee and serves on the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Council. Gov. Josh Shapiro has also appointed Austin to chair the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency.

While serving as lieutenant governor, Austin is focused on combating the epidemic of gun violence, supporting small and minority-owned businesses, advocating for working-class Pennsylvanians and being a champion for communities that feel like they’ve been left behind.

Austin currently resides in Allegheny County with his wife, Blayre Holmes Davis.
​
​On September 16, 2019, Michael D. Pennington was appointed as Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD).  Mr. Pennington has nearly 30 years of experience in the criminal and juvenile justice systems.

As PCCD’s Executive Director, Mr. Pennington oversees a staff of nearly 150 employees responsible for administering a wide – and growing – array of grants, programming, and activities designed to improve the justice system, deliver services to victims of crime, and increase the safety of Pennsylvania’s communities.

Prior to his appointment as Executive Director, Mr. Pennington was responsible for providing leadership and direction to PCCD’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) and Office of Criminal Justice System Improvements (OCJSI).  This included the development of policy recommendations and administration of federal and state funds to support programs designed to improve the Commonwealth’s juvenile and criminal justice systems and to prevent violence, delinquency, substance misuse, and other related problem behaviors among children and youth.  

A champion for systems reform and improving outcomes for youth, he worked as an agency lead partner in the MacArthur Foundation Models for Change Initiative focusing on developing long-term reform models in critical areas of juvenile justice for replication in Pennsylvania and other states.  

Mr. Pennington also facilitated strategic planning to sustain the ongoing reform work post-MacArthur Foundation's active, in-state involvement.  He led the development of the PA Resource Center for Evidence-based Prevention and Intervention Programs and Practices.  Mr. Pennington is an active member of Pennsylvania’s Juvenile Justice System Enhancement Strategy Leadership Team, served as the National Juvenile Justice Specialist to the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and Juvenile Justice Specialists throughout the U.S. and its Territories, and was recently elected as a member of the Board of Directors of the National Criminal Justice Association.

Mr. Pennington holds a Master of Science in Administration of Justice from Shippensburg University.