Michael Paul Jackson is the Communications Director at the Fines and Fees Justice Center (FFJC), where he leads a dynamic and experienced communications team to help educate stakeholders, galvanize advocates, and raise awareness on the groundbreaking and impactful work FFJC is doing to reform fines and fees at the national, state, and local level.

Michael has a long career in amplifying the voices and lived experiences of those in vulnerable communities. As a former newspaper reporter, he won an investigative journalism award for a multi-part series on the failures of North Carolina’s mental health care system. Prior to joining FFJC, he was the Deputy Director of Strategic Communications for The Bronx Defenders, one of the largest public defender nonprofits in the country. There, he helped spotlight the racial biases within New York City’s child welfare systems, police brutality policies within the NYPD, and the push to grant second chances for formerly incarcerated people through the Clean Slate Act.

Prior to joining The Bronx Defenders, he managed and oversaw communications for the Center for Policing Equity, helping to spread its values of reducing the causes of racial disparities in law enforcement. There, he helped launch the Justice Navigator, the organization’s first digital platform providing communities with access to public safety data. Before that, he was the Communications Director for JustLeadershipUSA, a racial and social justice organization centering on the voices of formerly incarcerated people.

Michael received his master’s from Long Island University, where he produced a feature film about gentrification in 2012. He lives in Brooklyn.