Spotlight
Juvenile Arrest and College Attainment
PCJ faculty affiliate Robert Sampson has co-authored a new study looking at whether an officially recorded juvenile arrest lingers beyond high school through college completion. The Great Leveler? Juvenile Arrest, College Attainment, and the Future of American Inequality finds that juvenile arrest is associated with a 20 to 30 percentage-point decrease in one’s likelihood of graduating from a four-year college. This association persists for college enrollees and is consistent across sociodemographic groups and birth cohorts. This study offers new insights on how official legal entanglement prior to adulthood may contribute to inequality in the United States.
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. Our Fall 2024 speaker series, The Diagnosis of Incarceration: The Health Impacts of Criminal System Involvement, 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.
Recordings of all six events in the series are now available.
News and Commentary
U.S. wants to deport FBI informant who was set to testify in gang case in Massachusetts
WBUR, June 27, 2025
Quoted: Alexandra Natapoff
Harvard Law Professor Andrew Manuel Crespo receives the 2025 Albert M. Sacks-Paul A. Freund Award for Teaching Excellence
Harvard Law Today, May 29, 2025
Featured: Andrew Manuel Crespo
Three affiliates named 2025 Guggenheim Fellows
The Harvard Gazette, April 17, 2025
Featured: Christopher Muller
Trump Is Sending People To The Camps
Talking Points Memo, April 16, 2025
Featured: Sandra Susan Smith
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.