Kate McMahon is known to be a committed reformer and problem-solver with significant experience in criminal justice, including jail oversight, prisoner’s rights, reentry, and capital punishment. She is an attorney admitted to practice in the State of New York, and is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School and Boston College. She has focused her career on developing legal and operational strategies to effect systemic change.
Currently, Kate is the Senior Director of The Women’s Project at Wildcat, an alternative to incarceration program that provides gender-responsive and trauma informed services that allow women and gender-expansive people in NYC to remain safely in the community instead of in jail or prison.
Before joining Wildcat, Kate spent a decade in NYC government, as Senior Counsel at the NYC Law Department and then as Deputy General Counsel for the New York City Board of Corrections (BOC). At the BOC, in addition to drafting local jail policy, Kate ran the Prison Death Review program and authored public reports and policy recommendations to prevent jail deaths.
Kate has also done pro bono work for the Vera Institute of Justice Center on Sentencing and Corrections and she founded and co-directed the Penn Law Prisoners’ Legal Education Clinic. She also taught as an adjunct professor at Brooklyn Law School.
