Vincent Schiraldi

Vincent Schiraldi is a Senior Research Scientist co-directing the Justice Lab at Columbia University. Schiraldi arrives at Columbia after directing the Program in Criminal Justice at the Harvard Kennedy School. He has had a long experience in public life, first coming to prominence as founder of the policy think tank, the Justice Policy Institute, then moving to government as director of the juvenile corrections in Washington, DC, and then as Commissioner of the New York City Department of Probation. Schiraldi has also served as Senior Advisor to the New York City Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice. In Washington and New York, Schiraldi gained a national reputation as a reformer who emphasized the humane and decent treatment of the men, women, and children under his correctional supervision. For Schiraldi, making communities safer and reducing crime necessarily means improving fairness in the system and developing opportunities in the poor communities where the crime problem is most serious. He pioneered efforts at community-based alternatives to incarceration with the YouthLink initiative in Washington DC, in New York City with the NeON network and the Close to Home program. Schiraldi has a Masters in Social Work from New York University, and a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Social Psychology from Binghamton University.