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Long before graduating in 2015 with a bachelor's degree in criminal justice, Hernan Carvente knew he wanted to dedicate his life to helping young people in prison. He was incarcerated at Brookwood Secure Center, a youth detention facility, when he was accepted to John Jay. "I wrote a letter to a friend saying I was going to John Jay to become an advocate," he said. "I was going to help other guys get through what I went through myself." Read more 

Since childhood, Professor Philip Yanos has been interested in mental health. He grew up on Wards Island, where his father worked as a psychiatrist at what was then one of the largest mental institutions in the country. As an academic, he wanted to examine more closely the issues that people with mental illness face, and his new book Written Off: Mental Health Stigma and the Loss of Human Potential, published this January by Cambridge University Press, does just that. "I was interested in looking at what was holding people back outside of themselves and inside of themselves," Yanos said. "I found that it was stigma." Read more

John Jay College hosted the 13^th annual John Jay/Harry Frank Guggenheim Symposium on Crime in America. The annual conference brings together researchers and policymakers with journalists and reporters to deepen public understanding on today's most relevant crime issues. The first day of the symposium ended with the annual Trailblazer Award Dinner, where Bill Moyers was honored as the fifth recipient of the annual Justice Media Trailblazer Award. The award is given annually by John Jay College and The Crime Report to honor individuals in the media who have advanced national understanding on the 21st-century challenges of criminal justice. Read more

When Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico on September 20, Professor Jodie Roure, who teaches Latin American Studies at John Jay and is an ACLU fellow in Puerto Rico, was on the island with her two children. Roure, who has done extensive human rights and domestic violence prevention work throughout the Americas, remembers firsthand the scale of devastation that quickly followed. Read more