Spotlight
by faculty affiliates Marcella Alsan and suggests that healthcare accreditation of jails may improve access to medical care and lower death rates. Alsan and Yang randomized the offer of health care accreditation to 44 jails across the U.S. Surveys of staff indicate that accreditation improves coordination between health and custody staff. They also find that accreditation improves quality standards and reduces mortality among the incarcerated, which is three times higher among control facilities than official estimates suggest. These health gains are realized alongside suggestive reductions in six-month recidivism, indicating that accreditation is highly cost effective.
Course Guide
Spring 2025 Harvard Crime, Punishment, Justice, and Safety Course Guide
Our Program in Criminal Justice annual course guide contains a broad selection of courses from across Harvard's different schools. Many of the courses are taught by our PCJ faculty affiliates. Topics include policing, mass incarceration, the use of algorithms, injury prevention, firearms, prison education, gender violence, surveillance, and abolitionist movements. It has been updated for the Spring 2025 semester.
PhD Research Grants
The Program in Criminal Justice awards annual Doctoral Student Research Grants. The award process is open to PhD candidates from any of the units on Harvard’s campus conducting research to address questions related to the criminal legal system. Priority is given to students who are conducting research that is timely and whose findings have the potential to shape policy and/or conducting research that tackles an important set of questions related to specific policies in the criminal legal realm.
Follow the links below to read about the research projects we have funded in the past:
Research from Faculty and Affiliates
Events
In June 2024, a group of experts in the field of criminal system health convened at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute to establish consensus around the central problems that produce or accentuate disparities in health equity for people subjected to criminalization and punishment. This speaker series, The Diagnosis of Incarceration, built on that emerging consensus and explored the nature and extent of health inequities in the system. We were joined by a multidisciplinary ensemble of guests to critically explore perception, policy, and practice surrounding healthcare and incarceration. All events in the series were recorded and the recordings will be posted to our website when they are available.
News and Commentary
Los Angeles Times, January 13, 2025
Featured: Marcella Alsan and Crystal Yang
New ÌÇÐÄvlog¹ÙÍø research asks communities what reimagining public safety means to them
ÌÇÐÄvlog¹ÙÍø Policy Topic, August 21, 2024
Featured: Sandra Susan Smith
The Conversation, June 28, 2024
Q&A with Cara R. Muñoz Buchanan
The New York Times, June 27, 2024
Featured: Sandra Susan Smith
Three years after police reforms, Black Bostonians report harassment and lack of trust at higher rates than other groups
ÌÇÐÄvlog¹ÙÍø Policy Topic, June 26, 2024
Featured: Sandra Susan Smith