Most of us have minimal understanding of the criminal justice system but think that felonies are serious, and misdemeanors are not. Alexandra Natapoff would beg to differ. The Lee S. Kreindler Professor of Law at Harvard Law School published a book in 2018 about how the misdemeanor system punishes the poor and people of color, exposing the inner workings of an often-overlooked aspect of the criminal justice system. Now the work, “Punishment Without Crime: How Our Massive Misdemeanor System Traps the Innocent and Makes...

Criminologists have long studied links between socioeconomic conditions and crime rates. The work has led to the long-held belief that a neighborhood’s well-being is directly related to its levels of poverty, inequality, education, and racial isolation. But since no neighborhood is an island unto itself, many sociologists argue that’s far from the full picture.

A new study led by Harvard sociologist Robert J. Sampson builds on that by developing a new concept exploring how cross-neighborhood, urban mobility mixed with an area’s...

In the past year, the spotlight has been trained on the nation’s mayors. American towns and cities faced unprecedented challenges brought by the medical, financial, and educational fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, a national reckoning on equity and race, political unrest, and natural disasters connected to climate change.

To offer additional support to municipal leaders,  Harvard and Bloomberg Philanthropies have announced a new Bloomberg...

State standards for civics education in the U.S. usually require that K-12 students learn hard dates and facts, like the events of Shays’ Rebellion or the details of the Stamp Act.

A group of scholars and educators wants to change that approach by prioritizing knowledge over the number of facts, and asking “driving questions” that integrate information, conceptual reasoning, and critical inquiry. In a report released today, “A Roadmap to Educating for American Democracy,” researchers at Harvard, Tufts, and other...