Stanford Law School today announced the appointment of criminologist Joan Petersilia as Professor of Law. Petersilia has spent more than 25 years studying the performance of U.S. criminal justice agencies and has been instrumental in affecting prison and parole reform in California and throughout the U.S. Petersilia currently serves as Professor of Criminology, Law and Society in the School of Social Ecology at the University of California, Irvine, where she directs the Center for Evidence-Based Corrections.
As a special advisor to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger since 2003, she helped reorganize juvenile and adult corrections, established a new Office of Research and an Office of Policy and Planning, and worked with the California Legislature to implement prison and parole reform.
“Her appointment signals a commitment by the law school to address the nation’s most pressing problems from an interdisciplinary perspective,” added Kara Dansky, executive director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center and a lecturer at the Law School.
