In Focus: Tracey L. Meares

Tracey L. Meares, Walton Hale Hamilton Professor of Law at Yale Law School, has written and lectured widely on crime prevention, procedural justice, and community capacity building, with an emphasis on empirical investigation. She was instrumental in developing "Project Safe Neighborhoods," a groundbreaking empirical approach to violence reduction that was documented to curtail violence in Chicago.

Meares has collaborated with the Center for Court Innovation on a number of projects. These include the Brownsville Anti-Violence Project, an initiative from the Brownsville Community Justice Center that seeks to reduce gun and gang violence in Brooklyn. She also participated in the Community Justice 2014 summit in San Francisco, where she delivered a lecture on procedural justice. She has served as an advisor to the Improving Courtroom Communication program. And she has worked with the Centre for Justice Innovation UK on a number of projects in England.

How Procedural Justice Strengthens the Public's Willingness to Obey the Law

In this New Thinking podcast, Tracey L. Meares outlines the four components of procedural justice and their power to enhance perceptions of government legitimacy. She also discusses how procedural justice is incorporated into Chicago Offender Notification Forums, an anti-violence intervention she helped design.

Is Procedural Justice the Secret Ingredient? Tracey L. Meares at Community Justice 2014

Deterrence and Legitimacy in Brownsville, Brooklyn: A Process Evaluation of the Brownsville Anti-Violence Project

This report documents a gun violence prevention program and finds high levels of cynicism regarding the fairness and effectiveness of the justice system among residents in Brownsville, Brooklyn.

Additional resources

Bio: Yale Law School

Video: "Smart, Tough, and Fair: Reducing Violent Crime in 60 Minutes or Less" 

Article: "Justice Sotomayor and the Jurisprudence of Procedural Justice"

Podcast: "To Be Fair: Procedural fairness in policing"