Word of his death spread quickly among OJJDP staff and the many juvenile justice professionals across the country who Dennis had worked with throughout the years. The breadth of Dennis’ activities—his work with the National Gang Center, his advocacy for OJJDP’s work on community supervision, supporting states’ efforts to comply with the core protections of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, and his work on community youth violence prevention—brought him into constant contact with juvenile justice professionals at every level in every state.
“I knew Dennis for only a few brief weeks,” said OJJDP Administrator Caren Harp. “In that short time, I was impressed with his passion for his work, his dedication to our nation’s youth, his sense of humor, and how well he engaged with others. His skills with people and knowledge cannot be replaced.”
Dennis joined OJJDP in 1999. During his nearly two decades at OJJDP, he wore many hats. He began his OJJDP career as a state representative in the State Relations and Assistance Division. Over the next few years, he was instrumental in the development of OJJDP’s Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders; served as compliance monitor; managed the division’s training and technical assistance efforts; and served as a region chief, where he supervised six staff members while continuing to manage his state grants.
In 2004, Dennis was named a policy advisor focused on youth gangs and youth violence prevention. Following a reorganization in 2013, Dennis joined the Juvenile Justice System Improvement Division, where he served as a program manager and a senior policy advisor on youth gangs, community supervision, and community violence prevention programs. More recently, in addition to his other responsibilities, Dennis took on work as a compliance analyst in the Core Protections Division. Dennis would sometimes jokingly tell his supervisors: “Keep me busy; don’t let me not be busy.”
OJJDP Administrators often turned to Dennis for information on the juvenile justice system, policy development, and insight on how the juvenile justice system functioned at the state level. Kellie Blue, Associate Administrator and his supervisor in the Juvenile Justice System Improvement Division said of Dennis, “He was a rock when our division was getting started. He kept on telling me ‘don’t worry, we can get it done.’”
The states had no stronger advocate. Dennis was constantly in touch with OJJDP stakeholders in the states; he worked to ensure that the states had access to the most current resources, evidence-based programs, and training and technical assistance. Before his employment at OJJDP, Dennis served as a probation officer in nearby Fairfax County, VA. He sometimes introduced himself as a recovering probation officer when speaking to state and local professionals as a way to connect with his audience. He always connected with the people in the juvenile justice field in a personal way. He would shake the hands of youth in detention facilities and look them in the eye as he conversed with them.
As word of Dennis' passing spread among the juvenile justice community across the country, many of the people who knew Dennis and had been touched by his work reached out to OJJDP to offer condolences or share their favorite memory of him. Following are a few of the messages that OJJDP received:
Read additional tributes to Dennis Mondoro.