Diane Ragans

Director, Center for Justice and Community Collaboration

Diane Ragans is the director of the Center for Justice and Community Collaboration (CJCC) with the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR). CJCC is composed of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Training and Technical Assistance (TTA) Program and the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office) Collaborative Reform Initiative Organizational Assessment (CRI OA) project. Ms. Ragans serves as the deputy project director and the continuous quality improvement manager for CRI OA, supporting multiple subject-matter expert teams. Ms. Ragans has responsibility for all technical matters and related daily management aspects of the projects. She provides technical assistance services in support of more than 50 state and local jurisdictions as well as community organizations in their efforts to prevent and respond to hate crimes. Ms. Ragans manages a team that develops program communications, products, and resources; conducts research, data collection, and analysis of best practices; and plans, coordinates, and delivers in-person and virtual training and technical assistance.

Ms. Ragans previously managed, provided program oversight for, and coordinated activities in support of IIR’s information sharing projects, including the Global Justice Information Sharing Initiative, the Criminal Intelligence Coordinating Council, the National Network of Fusion Centers, the Fusion Process Technical Assistance Program and related services, the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR) Initiative, the Intelligence Commanders Training program, the SAR Analytic Role Training program, the Building Communities of Trust project, the Information Sharing Environment (ISE) Privacy Guidelines Implementation Support project, the National Criminal Intelligence Resource Center website, and other related initiatives.

Previously, Ms. Ragans served as a vice president for Hillard Heintze, a Jensen Hughes company. She was a project manager and a member of subject-matter expert teams in the Law Enforcement Consulting and Security Risk Management practice areas working on reform initiatives for local and state law enforcement agencies and conducting assessments of the risks, threats, and vulnerabilities faced by private sector industry clients. Ms. Ragans also served as the technical lead and liaison to the Jensen Hughes Training Academy for the development of e-learning proposals, pricing, and creative development projects.

Ms. Ragans began her career with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) in Tallahassee, Florida, where she held positions in Criminal Justice Information Services, the Inspector General’s Office, the Criminal Investigations and Forensic Science Program, and the Division of Criminal Investigations. Her duties in these positions included overseeing all quality issues relating to the creation and maintenance of criminal history records; conducting and/or coordinating management assessments, justification reviews, audits, and projects of various functions, programs, and entities within FDLE; monitoring performance-based budgeting efforts departmentwide, including assisting in the development of performance measures, research and development of automated management systems, and related policy development and enhancement; analyzing forensic and investigative data for use in resource allocation and justifications; serving as a liaison to seven regional offices regarding FDLE’s investigative strategy, the automated management systems, and performance-based budgeting; and serving as an intelligence analyst and a crime intelligence analyst supervisor in FDLE’s Intelligence Center, where she provided analytical support and management oversight in the areas of research, documentation, and transmittal of intelligence and investigative information.

Ms. Ragans holds a bachelor’s degree in criminology from Florida State University. She is also a graduate of the charter class of FDLE’s Foundational Leadership Program.