Stone appointed professor of practice by KSG Dean Nye

Dean Joseph S. Nye Jr. announced this week the appointment of Christopher Stone as Professor of Practice in the Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Chair of Criminal Justice Policy and Management at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government (KSG). Stone, who currently directs the Vera Institute of Justice in New York, will take up the position in January 2005.

In announcing the appointment, Nye said he looks forward to having Stone assume responsibility for leading the Kennedy School’s Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management. The program is part of the School’s Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy.

“Chris Stone’s leadership as director of the Vera Institute of Justice for the past 10 years makes him an ideal candidate for this job,” said Nye. “Under Chris, the institute not only succeeded in instituting major justice reforms but succeeded in reaching out internationally to partner with groups in South Africa, Nigeria, Brazil, and Russia, among others. We look forward to working with him.”

Stone remarked, “People around the world depend on their police, courts, and criminal justice agencies to keep them safe, secure, and free. It will be a privilege to lead the Kennedy School’s criminal justice program and to work with colleagues across the University to advance both the theory and practice of producing safety and justice in the United States and around the world.”

Prior to being named director of the Vera Institute in 1994, Stone served as director of the institute’s London office. He has also worked as staff attorney for the public defender service for the District of Columbia and has taught as an adjunct professor at New York University Law School.

Stone is a graduate of Harvard College (A.B. ’78), the University of Cambridge (M.Phil. ’79), and Yale Law School (J.D. ’82). He has also served as facilitator on several occasions for the U.S. government. Stone moderated a series of meetings for the National Institute of Justice in 2002-03 on the topic “Minority Trust and Confidence in the Police,” as well as a series of meetings for the

U.S. Department of Justice and the White House from 1998 to 2001 aimed at improving police performance and community relations.

Mark Moore, the previous holder of the Guggenheim chair, said Stone brings tremendous credentials to his new position at the Kennedy School. “I have nothing but the highest regard for his intellectual abilities, his judgment, and his fervent commitment to improving the policies and practices of legal institutions throughout the world. He will be a great asset not only to the Kennedy School, but also to all those other parts of Harvard that are concerned about violence, security, and justice.”

Professors Philip Heymann and Malcolm Sparrow, who together participated in the search to fill this chair, emphasized the importance of Stone’s international experience and interests as a “new dimension” that could be brought to the School’s existing program. Heymann emphasized the importance of work focused on building a strong political commitment to the “rule of law” in developing countries, and to the difficulty of building institutions that could reliably reflect and pursue this goal.

Sparrow, who directs executive programs focused on regulatory and enforcement agencies, as well as on control of corruption, talked about the importance of bringing new analytic techniques aimed at management of risks to these agencies. He pointed to Stone’s wide experience and expertise in doing such analyses in difficult areas such as South Africa and India.