Laurie Robinson, Professor Emeritus

Biography

Robinson Professor
Laurie Robinson

Laurie Robinson joined George Mason in 2012 as the Clarence J. Robinson Professor of Criminology, Law and Society after more than three decades of involvement in national criminal justice policy.  Reflecting her ongoing engagement with national policy matters, in 2014 President Obama named Robinson co-chair of a White House task force set up to develop recommendations on ways to build greater trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve.  In 2019 she was named chair of the board of directors of the Council on Criminal Justice, a new national bipartisan think tank established to build consensus on solutions to criminal justice policy challenges based on facts and evidence.

Robinson served twice – during the Clinton and Obama Administrations — as a Senate-confirmed, Presidentially-appointed Assistant Attorney General heading the Justice Department’s research and criminal justice grants agency, the Office of Justice Programs.  Her time heading OJP is the longest of any director in the agency’s 50-year history.  Her second tenure heading the $2.5 billion agency was marked by a focus on science and evidence-based programming:  For example, she launched an initiative to better integrate evidence into OJP’s program and policies, and set up a first-time “what works” clearinghouse for the criminal justice field.

Between her two terms at DOJ, Robinson served as the founding director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Criminology Master of Science Program.  During her first DOJ tenure in the 1990s, she led the federal engagement with states and localities on innovations in addressing crime.  Her agency’s annual budget grew from $800 million in 1993 to over $4 billion in 2000.  She oversaw the largest increase in federal spending on crime-related research in the nation’s history and spearheaded the federal government initiatives in such areas as violence against women, drug treatment courts, and law enforcement technology.

Before joining DOJ, she directed the American Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Section in Washington for 14 years.  She has frequently testified before Congress and has served on numerous national boards, including those of the National Policing Institute, the Vera Institute of Justice, the Constitution Project, the Center for Naval Analysis (CNA), and the Committee on Law & Justice of the National Academies of Science.  Robinson is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Brown University.  She lives in Washington, DC with her husband, Sheldon Krantz, a lawyer and law professor.

Email:  lrobin17@gmu.edu