8/6/07 -- Juvenile justice expert and researcher Hunter Hurst III has announced his plans to retire in 2008 after 34 years as Director of the National Center for Juvenile Justice (NCJJ), located in Pittsburgh, Pa. The NCJJ is the nation’s only non-profit research organization concentrating solely on the juvenile justice system and the prevention of juvenile delinquency and child abuse and neglect. The NCJJ, with its staff of 30 conducting legal, applied, and systems research, is the research division of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges.

Hunter Hurst has served as NCJJ’s Director since the Center’s founding in 1973, and is widely known in the juvenile justice research field for his leadership and innovation. Before joining NCJJ, Hurst served as Director of Intake, East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana Family Court, and Director of Survey and Planning Services for the National Council on Crime and Delinquency in Austin, Texas. A graduate of Louisiana State University with both B.S. and M.S.W. degrees, he has directed more than thirty applied research studies and authored numerous publications.

According to Judge Maurice B. Cohill Jr., of Pittsburgh, who spearheaded the creation of the Center in the 1970s and serves as Chair of the Center’s Board of Fellows, “Hunter Hurst, a native of Mississippi, gave up those southern roots and came to us in Pittsburgh in 1973 as the first director, and, indeed, the very first staff member of the newly established National Center for Juvenile Justice. After a nationwide search, we concluded he was the man for the job. How right we were! From a tiny office hidden in the Law School of the University of Pittsburgh and with a staff of four hired by him, he has led the Center to become the internationally known research organization that it is today. It can truly be said that ‘after he was made, the mold was broken.’"

NCJFCJ Executive Director Mary V. Mentaberry says of Hunter Hurst, “His vision, dedication and leadership in the field of juvenile justice will be greatly missed.”

The NCJFCJ is in the process of conducting a nationwide search for a new NCJJ director.