Shakyra Diaz

An accomplished strategist with extensive public policy and organizing experience grounded in authentic coalition building, Shakyra Diaz is the Alliance for Safety and Justice’s Chief of Federal Advocacy where she advocates for investments that scale safety solutions and interventions that improve wellbeing led and supported by communities most impacted by systemic harm. She previously served as the Chief of Staff, Ohio State Director, Managing Director of Crime Survivors for Safety and Justice, and Managing Director of Partnerships.
At ASJ Shakyra has provided leadership for several campaigns, resulting in legal system reforms that ended long standing barriers to stability for people with past convictions and victims of crime.
Prior to joining ASJ, Shakyra worked as an educator where she enhanced educational outcomes for Cleveland youth. She also worked as a policy director leading policy, legislative, and judicial rules campaigns to improve systems. Her efforts have eliminated unfair drug law policies, enhanced protections for sexual assault victims, expanded access to counsel, supported voting rights access for currently and formerly incarcerated people, ended routine juvenile shackling in courts and changed policies that prohibited detained nursing mothers from pumping milk. She has been involved in many efforts including campaigns for fairer policing and access to water in Puerto Rico as well as human rights for Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent. Drawing on her personal experience with sexual and community violence as well as her understanding of various systems, Shakyra helped shape systemic recommendations for reform efforts, including the Cleveland Division of Police’s consent decree.
Shakyra was born in the Dominican Republic and was raised in Cleveland; she is a graduate of Case Western Reserve University. She lives in Northeast Ohio with her family.