The Stanford Criminal Justice Center (SCJC) serves as Stanford's vehicle for promoting and coordinating the study of criminal law and the criminal justice system, including legal and interdisciplinary research, curriculum development, and preparation of law students for careers in criminal law. The center is headed by faculty director Robert Weisberg and executive director Kara Dansky.
SCJC's activities cover areas such as criminal investigation and criminal trial practice and procedure, institutional examination of the police and correctional systems, social science study of the origins and criminal behavior and methods of punishment, and criminal legislation and enforcement in areas ranging from drug crimes to federal white collar crimes.
The center brings legal scholars together with experts from the social sciences, history, and other disciplines on major issues, leading to collective scholarly publications that emanate from these conferences. SCJC also organizes policy forums and strategic roundtables for government officials and nonprofit leaders addressing pragmatic issues of criminal justice reform.
Collaboration within the law school's faculty helps promote multi-student empirical research projects and co-authorship with professors. Reaching beyond SLS, law faculty and students in the program work with other units at Stanford whose work bears on criminal justice issues, including the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity (CCSRE) and the Institute for Research in the Social Sciences (IRiSS).
Together with the law students' Criminal Law Society, SCJC provides an advisory panel of alumni and others who practice criminal law or work in criminal law policy to serve as career planning mentors and advisors. Regular presentations are held wherein prominent criminal lawyers from all parts of the criminal justice system educate students about opportunities and strategies for succeeding in criminal law careers.
In alliance with the Clinical Education Program and Public Interest Programs at Stanford Law School, SCJC supervises and places students in outstanding externships in prosecution and defense agencies, as well as holds trial and appellate-based clinical courses focused on criminal justice reform.
The Stanford Executive Sessions on Sentencing and Corrections is an innovative form of policy working group designed to bring together the key public, academic, and organizational leaders in the field of criminal justice policy in a spirit of cooperative movement toward reform of the sentencing and corrections systems, as well as the criminal justice system as a whole, in California. During the 2007 phase of the Executive Sessions we held a series of theoretical and analytical discussions on four topics pertinent to state sentencing and corrections policy generally: the possibility of creating a sentencing commission for the state of California, the history of state-local partnerships in the field of sentencing and corrections, the role of the judiciary in developing sentencing policy, and data integration in the state-wide criminal justice system. For the 2008 phase of the Executive Sessions, we have narrowed our focus to center on ways in which information exchanges in criminal justice at the county level can inform public policy. Specifically, our mission in the 2008 Executive Sessions is to encourage collaborative criminal justice policy development by: promoting public/private partnerships with state, county, and municipal governments in the criminal justice arena; creating opportunities for the use of social science research to aid in the development and implementation of empirically-validated, data-driven criminal justice programs and policies; and serving as a public service consultant to the State of California and its fifty-eight counties.
The California Sentencing Commission: Laying the Groundwork. Report and Recommendations
California Corrections Reform: State/Local Partnerships. Findings and Analysis
The Role of the Judiciary in Shaping Sentencing Law and Policy. Report and Analysis.
Coordination at the Front-End of Sentencing: The Judiciary, Probation, and the Pre-Sentencing Report.
The Stanford Criminal Justice Center is partnering with the Little Hoover Commission on its Sentencing Reform study, which represents a complete review of the opportunities for sentencing reform in California within the broader context of the State's correctional policies. As part of this study, the Commission will assess the role of sentencing reform as an element of overall correctional system reform including parole and prison reforms, and the importance of a "holistic" approach to reform policy. The Criminal Justice Center's Executive Director testified before the Commission at its public hearing on August 24, 2006. View a copy of the report submitted in preparation for that hearing. The Criminal Justice Center is currently preparing a report for the Commission on the history of amendments to California's sentencing system.
Dr. Joan Petersilia, a Visiting Professor of Law, taught a Stanford Law School class entitled, "Crime and Punishment Policy: Reforming California Corrections" during the fall semester 2005. This course offered students a unique opportunity to learn about California's historic attempt to reform its juvenile and adult corrections system. The students heard from many speakers, including the Director of Corrections, the Director of Juvenile Justice, ex-convicts, victims, families of prisoners, advocacy groups, and other researchers. Each student was required to choose a research topic for their term papers. Some of these student term papers, along with Dr. Petersilia course syllabus, have been placed on Stanford's Criminal Justice Center website in the hopes that they may be useful in the reform efforts.
California Sentencing & Corrections Policy Series Stanford Criminal Justice Center Working Paper.
Distributed for Review and Comment only. Do not cite without author's permission.
Please send questions or suggestions to Kara Dansky Executive Director, Stanford Criminal Justice Center.
The Stanford Criminal Justice Center is frequently asked to provide legal analysis for various government and non-profit entities on a broad range of topics related to criminal law and criminal justice policy. Our goal in this endeavor is to offer the best possible legal analysis of the subjects we're asked to comment on, and to remain neutral regarding any related political issues. Please feel free to review some of the reports that we've developed here.
A policy roundtable hosted by the Stanford Criminal Justice Center.