Deanie Anyangwe was a policy analyst with the Youth team at CLASP, where she focused on preventing and redressing the harms of the criminal legal system. Deanie brought experience working on a variety of issues including criminalization, housing policy, health policy and communications, school health, and emergency preparedness and response. She also brought a strong background in anti-racist praxis and pedagogy to her role, and grounded her work in Black feminist and abolitionist politics.

Prior to joining CLASP, Deanie worked with the Southern Coalition for Social Justice on a campaign to decriminalize adolescence by elevating grassroots efforts to protect and support youth, conducting qualitative research, developing research plans for youth-led participatory action research, and developing case studies and reports to support advocacy efforts.

Deanie earned a master’s degree in Health Behavior and a master’s degree in City and Regional Planning in housing and community development from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She completed her bachelor’s degree in Health Policy and Administration at Penn State University.