The Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management at the Kennedy School of Government aims to enable governments to fulfill their obligations to ensure public safety and justice. We do this through research, teaching and curriculum development, and maintaining long-lasting partnerships with practitioners and other scholars. We also organize executive sessions--intensive conversations among leading practitioners and scholars in a specific field that span several years, punctuated by research, practical experimentation, and collaborative publications.

The Program in Criminal Justice takes a sector-wide view of criminal justice, focusing on the policies and management of multiple institutions whose work contributes to safety and justice, rather than specializing on issues of policing, courts, or corrections. By examining multiple institutions at once, the program takes a broad view of several issues that affect the entire justice and safety sector, such as transparency, legitimacy, protection of human rights, and cost-effectiveness.

The Program also takes an international, comparative approach to questions of safety and justice. This includes research to expand the range of empirical indicators available to facilitate comparisons among countries, particularly comparisons that cut across legal traditions and levels of economic development.