Age : 50
Residence : Franklin Park
Family : Husband, Bill; daughters Jetta, 8, and Nova, 6
Occupation : Director of justice-related services at the Allegheny County Department of Human Services
Education : Bachelor's degrees in law enforcement and environmental science in 1980, and a master's degree in criminal justice in 1983, all from Mercyhurst College in Erie
Background : For the first six years of her career, Kroll was a correctional officer at SCI Camp Hill. She later became an emergency psychiatric clinician for several police departments in Massachusetts. She started at Allegheny County's Department of Human Services 15 years ago.
Noteworthy : She won the Albert B. Craig Jr. Award for Innovation in Behavioral Health earlier this month. The award goes to people who challenge society to think differently about behavioral health and who have developed programs to improve behavioral health. Her staff has worked to helps people with mental health problems improve their lives and stay out of jail. Her department sponsored a conference and invited visitors from other regions to spread the plan across the country. She pledged to share evenly the award's cash prize of $5,000 with the 35 members of her staff.
Quote : "A lot of jails have individuals who have mental illness. They are people first; they had lives before they got struck down with their disease. We're here to make sure you get back to your old life. ... It's the easiest model. From a big city to a small town, they can adopt and really start to work. It's an easy to way look at the whole criminal justice system and break it up into easy chunks."
