Jennifer Peirce is the Associate Director of Research (Beyond Jails Initiative) at the Vera Institute of Justice, a national nonprofit research and policy organization in the United States. At Vera, her research focuses on county-level criminal legal systems and ways to reduce local jail incarceration. She has also researched the experiences of transgender people in prison and people held in solitary confinement. Prior to joining Vera, Jennifer completed her PhD in criminology from John Jay College / CUNY Graduate Center, with support from the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation. Her dissertation analyzed incarcerated people’s perceptions of a human rights-oriented prison reform initiative in the Dominican Republic. Outside of academia, Jennifer has extensive experience working on justice and security topics in international development and foreign policy, with the Canadian foreign ministry, the Inter-American Development Bank, and various NGOs. She also holds an M.A. from the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University and a B.A. in International Development Studies and Spanish from Dalhousie University and the University of King’s College. She teaches on criminal justice and human rights topics at John Jay College and New York University.
