Casey Gwinn, Esq. serves as the President of Alliance for HOPE International.
Casey has been recognized by The American Lawyer magazine as one of the top 45 public lawyers in America. He is an honors graduate of Stanford University and UCLA School of Law. Casey served for eight years as the elected City Attorney of San Diego from 1996 to 2004. Prior to entering elected office, Casey founded City Attorney’s Child Abuse and Domestic Violence Unit, leading the Unit from 1986 to 1996 – prosecuting both misdemeanor and felony cases. The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges honored his specialized prosecution unit as the model domestic violence prosecution unit in the nation in 1993.
In 2002, Casey saw his vision of a comprehensive Center for services to victims of family violence become a reality in San Diego as he led the effort to open the nationally acclaimed San Diego Family Justice Center with professionals from 25 agencies together under one roof. His leadership as a prosecutor has been widely credited for the 90% drop in domestic violence homicides in the City of San Diego. In October 2003, President George W. Bush announced a national initiative to begin creating Family Justice Centers across the country and asked Casey to provide leadership to the effort. Today, Casey and his team support more than 130 open and developing Family Justice Centers in the U.S. and around the world. He is also an expert in the handling of near-fatal strangulation assaults.
Casey has served on the U.S. Attorney General’s National Advisory Committee on Violence Against Women and the American Bar Association Commission on Domestic Violence. He chaired the California Attorney General’s Task Force on Domestic Violence. He also served on the congressionally created Department of Defense task force, studying the handling of family violence throughout the Department of Defense. His work has been profiled nationally on the Oprah Winfrey Show, CBS The Early Show, USA Today, The Huffington Post, New Yorker Magazine and a host of other news outlets.
He has authored or co-authored a host of articles and media commentaries and ten books on domestic violence and the Family Justice Center movement. In 2015 he authored “Cheering for the Children: Creating Pathways to HOPE for Children Exposed to Trauma”, a clarion call to all caring people to become cheerleaders for children exposed to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). In the book, Casey explains why childhood trauma should be the preeminent public health issue in America today and how we can all help change the lives of children for the better. This book was the result of one of Casey’s great personal passions, Camp HOPE America, the unique camping initiative he founded at the San Diego Family Justice Center that is now expanding across the nation. Camp HOPE America is the first specialized camp in the country focused exclusively on children exposed to domestic violence and child abuse.
In 2018, Casey Gwinn received the prestigious Ronald Wilson Reagan Public Policy Award from the Office for Victims of Crime in the U.S. Department of Justice, recognizing his national vision and leadership in the rapidly developing Family Justice Center movement and Camp HOPE America.
Casey’s newest book, written with Dr. Chan Hellman from the University of Oklahoma, is entitled “Hope Rising: How the Science of HOPE Can Change Your Life.” It is a roadmap to a life-well lived and points the way toward the power of hope in the lives of all those who have experienced hardship or adversity. It is currently available in e-book format on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other online booksellers. It will be released by Morgan James Publishing to bookstores in November, 2018.
Casey and his wife, Beth, have three grown children. He is a proud grandfather of three grandchildren