Katurah topps, esq - Community Advisory Board Member

Katurah Topps, Esq. is an activist and civil rights lawyer currently serving as Policy Counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) and a core member of LDF’s Justice in Public Safety Project, (formerly Policing Reform Campaign). In these roles, Katurah uses legal, legislative, and policy-centered approaches at the local, state, and federal level to dismantle racially discriminatory systems that impede the safety or advancement of Black people, including policing and other components of the criminal legal system. In doing so, Katurah works closely with impacted communities and grassroots organizations across the country to support community-led interventions and demand government transparency and accountability.

Katurah advocates against technologies that surveil, track, or make decisions that negatively impact communities of color, such as facial recognition and other biometric readers; predictive policing tools; risk assessments and more. For example, in December 2019, to highlight the dangers of biased and unchecked technologies Katurah led and organized the first New York City-wide community forum on Algorithmic Bias in the city’s Automated Decision Systems (ADS). This inaugural ADS Forum, in collaboration with NYC residents and experts in technology, policy, and social services detailed how ADS use in housing, child welfare, education, employment, and the criminal legal system has harmed Black and brown New Yorkers.