Coletta Youngers
Senior Fellow
Issues of Expertise
Gender and Racial Justice
Drug PolicyEducation
- B.A. University of the South, Political Science
- Studies at St. Johns College, Oxford University
- M.A. Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs
Social
Contact Coletta Youngers
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Coletta Youngers is a Senior Fellow with over thirty years of experience working on issues related to women’s incarceration, international drug policy, and human rights and democracy in the Andean region. From 2013 to 2023, she led WOLA’s women and incarceration project, aimed at dramatically reducing the number of women in prison in Latin America and promoting gender-sensitive drug policy reforms. She served for many years as a consultant with WOLA’s drug policy reform project and also participated on behalf of WOLA in the Research Consortium on Drugs and the Law (CEDD). From 1987 to 2003, she was on the WOLA staff, and was responsible for work on the Andean Region and drug policy. Ms. Youngers also founded and until 2003 directed WOLA’s Drugs, Democracy and Human Rights Project.
In addition to her work at WOLA, she collaborated with the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC), was the International Outreach Coordinator for the US-based National Council of Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls, and is a founding member of the International Network of Formerly Incarcerated Women (INFIW). She presently serves on the INFIW Advisory Committee, the Advisory Council of Penal Reform International (PRI) and the Asamblea General (Board of Directors) of the Colombian human rights NGO, Dejusticia.
Ms. Youngers is co-editor of Drugs and Democracy in Latin America: The Impact of U.S. Policy (2004), also published in Spanish. She is also the author of the books, Violencia Política y Sociedad Civil en el Perú (2003) on the Peruvian human rights movement, and Thirty Years of Advocacy for Human Rights, Democracy and Social Justice (2006), on the history of WOLA (also available in Spanish). She is the author of numerous book chapters and has published extensively in U.S. and Latin American research publications and media. She earned a Masters’ Degree in public affairs at Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs.
Recent Work
