Justice & Drug Policy Faculty

Featured Faculty Research

Glass globe sitting on chalk board with crisis and policy written in chalk, photo by courtneyk/Getty Images

Had We Planned Better for a Pandemic, We Might Be More Free Today

Sep 4, 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic has made Americans less free, confining us to our homes, and separating us from the people we love and things we value doing. Tim McDonald (cohort '16) and professor Robert Lempert say this COVID-19 experience may help people to learn the importance of planning to preserving and expanding freedom in an interconnected and complex world.

Whitney Maddox and DeShaun Bradford stand in line with hundreds of others outside a career center in Frankfort, Kentucky, hoping for assistance with their unemployment claim, June 18, 2020, photo by Bryan Woolston/Reuters

Prof Examines the Racial Disparity in Unemployment Benefits

Jul 15, 2020

Today's unemployed inherited a system of state policies that were set up in the 1930s, writes Prof. Kathryn Edwards. For decades there have been calls to reform unemployment insurance; this is one more reason. Economic racial inequality in America cannot be solved through unemployment insurance, but it certainly shouldn't be exacerbated by it.

Jonathan Welburn stands on Santa Monica's nearly deserted Third Street Promenade in May 2020, photo by Diane Baldwin/RAND Corporation

Balancing Public Health and Economic Effects of Physical Distancing: Q&A with Jonathan Welburn

Jul 13, 2020

Prof. Jonathan Welburn, an operations researcher at RAND, has spent years studying how economic shocks ripple outward like a contagion through the economy. He recently worked with fellow professors and several Pardee RAND students to develop an online tool that policymakers can use to manage the public health and economic trade-offs of physical-distancing policies.

Street sign with Wall St. and Main St. signs, photo by BobHemphill/Getty Images

Prof Describes a Tale of Two Americas

Jul 9, 2020

While a confluence of crises have spotlighted a dangerous divide, writes Prof. Krishna Kumar, inequality in the United States has been increasing for decades and cannot be undone in a hurry. There is no substitute for firm policy commitment over many years to address disparities in the basic aspects of life—education, health, jobs, financial and business participation, and justice.

Harvard University campus after it shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, March 25, 2020, photo by Keiko Hiromi/Reuters

College in America Could Be Changed Forever

Jul 7, 2020

COVID-19 is threatening to upend the models that both public and private higher education depend on in the United States, write Professors Charles Goldman and Rita Karam. As universities consider whether to postpone in-person classes until next year, many parents and students may be questioning the value of a traditional higher education.