Jeremy Travis

Education

Travis received his B.A. cum laude in American studies from Yale College in 1970, his M.P.A. from New York University Wagner Graduate School of Public Service in 1977, and his J.D. from New York University School of Law in 1982.

Career

Travis served as a special advisor to then-mayor of New York City Edward Koch from 1986 to 1989, and as deputy commissioner in the New York City Police Department from 1990 to 1994. He was the director of the National Institute of Justice from 1994 to 2000. From 2000, until becoming president of John Jay College in 2004, he was a senior fellow at the Justice Policy Center. Travis announced in October 2016 that he will step down from his position as president to pursue a criminal justice fellowship at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and teach at the Graduate School of the City University of New York. He plans to leave his post in August 2017.

Research interests

Travis' research interests include the reintegration of released prisoners into society, a subject about which he wrote a book, "But They All Come Back," which was published in 2005. While at the National Institute of Justice, he established large government initiatives to assess crime trends, improve the accuracy of forensic science, and evaluate the effectiveness of federal anti-crime efforts. In 2014, the National Research Council released a report on incarceration in the United States co-edited by Travis, Steve Redburn, and Bruce Western, which found only a slight relationship between incarceration and lower crime rates.

Honors and awards

Travis has received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, the American Society of Criminology's August Vollmer Award, the Gerhard O.W. Muller Award from the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, and the Margaret Mead Award from the International Community Corrections Association.

College Administration

Travis presided over a decline in both freshman enrollment and graduate enrollment at the College.