CCJ Directory

Travis is a Senior Fellow at the Columbia Justice Lab. In this role, he is working on a book with Lab Director Bruce Western on the role of values in the future of justice reform; helping with the launch of a major research project on the impact of mass incarceration on New York City neighborhoods; and continuing his involvement with the Square One Project, a multi-year initiative dedicated to “reimagining justice.”

Prior to joining the Justice Lab, Travis served as Executive Vice President of Criminal Justice at Arnold Ventures, one of the nation’s largest funders of justice reform. There he led a team advancing evidence-based reforms to strengthen police accountability, promote community safety, reduce unjust pretrial detention, advance effective prosecution and public defense policies, improve community supervision, develop models for more humane prisons, and remove barriers to reintegration for people with criminal records. While at Arnold Ventures, Jeremy collaborated with Western to launch the Square One Project. In 2023, the essays produced by the Square One Executive Session were published in a book titled “Parsimony and Other Radical Ideas About Justice,” co-edited by Western and Travis.

Prior to his tenure at Arnold Ventures, Travis served as President of John Jay College of Criminal Justice for 13 years. Under his leadership, John Jay became a senior liberal arts college, raised graduation rates, secured record levels of financial support for John Jay students, and became a national leader in the justice reform movement. Travis worked with John Jay faculty to create a suite of research centers exploring critical topics such as community safety, prisoner reentry, the changing role of prosecutors, community violence interventions, emergency preparedness, terrorism, racial reckoning, cybercrime, and criminal justice ethics.

Before John Jay, Travis was a senior fellow with the Justice Policy Center at the Urban Institute, where he launched a national research program on prisoner reentry. He also served six years in the Clinton Administration as director of the National Institute of Justice (NIJ). During his tenure, NIJ quadrupled federal funding for criminal justice research. Other career highlights include government service as Deputy Commissioner, Legal Matters, at the New York City Police Department, Special Advisor to the Mayor of New York, Chief Counsel to the House Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, law clerk for Ruth Bader Ginsburg when she sat on the Court of Appeals, and six years at the Vera Institute of Justice.