James Jacobs appointed to National Institute of Corrections advisory board

James B. Jacobs, Chief Justice Warren E. Burger Professor of Constitutional Law and the Courts as well as director of the Center for Research in Crime and Justice, has been appointed by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to the advisory board of the National Institute of Corrections, an agency within the U.S. Department of Justice’s Federal Bureau of Prisons. The 16-member board provides policy direction to the institute.

“It’s an honor," says Jacobs, noting that the appointment is especially meaningful to him since his mentor, the late Norval Morris, former dean of the University of Chicago Law School, had been on the advisory board for a number of years.  "I’d like to be a bridge to academia and be helpful in thinking about important policy issues that arise--to offer an academic’s perspective. I’ve been writing about and researching prisons for my whole career.” Jacobs is the author or co-author of 15 books. His first, Stateville: The Penitentiary in Mass Society (1977), is considered a classic in the penological field.

Posted on August 19, 2010