While justice policy has often been based on ‘common sense’ and in response to emotionally charged events, it takes rigorous and objective research and policy evaluation to understand the actual public-safety effects of policies and practice. Urban’s commitment to both rigor and policy relevance makes it an exciting place to conduct this research and evaluation.
Akiva Liberman is a senior fellow in the Justice Policy Center at the Urban Institute, where he researches and evaluates crime and justice policy, with a focus on juvenile delinquency and juvenile justice. Recent projects include evaluations of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s Juvenile Justice Reform and Reinvestment Initiative, juvenile reentry programs supported through the Juvenile Second Chance Act, Restorative Justice in Rhode Island Schools, pay for success initiatives, and Early Access to Medicaid as a Reentry Strategy.
Before joining Urban in 2010, Liberman was a program officer for research on the implementation of effective drug treatment for criminal justice populations at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (2007–10) and a program officer for research on delinquency and juvenile justice at the National Institute of Justice (1999–2007), during which time he also served on a scientific team that conducted systematic reviews concerning youth violence prevention for the Centers for Disease Control’s Guide to Community Preventive Services. He also edited The Long View of Crime: A Synthesis of Longitudinal Research, published in 2008.
Liberman has conducted research at Columbia University, the New York City Criminal Justice Agency, and the University of Arizona. He obtained a PhD in social psychology from New York University in 1993.