Harvard Gets A Grant for Crime Center

The Ford Foundation has awarded the Law School $1 million to establish a Center for the Advancement of Criminal Justice.

The center will be headed by James Vorenberg '48, professor of Law, who served as executive director of the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice between 1965 and 1967. Lloyd E. Ohlin, professor of Criminology, will be director of research.

The center will provide up to 10 $12,500 fellowships a year for policemen, prosecutors, judges, correction officials and probation and parole officers to do research on problems relating to crime and enforcement.

Vorenberg said Friday, when his appointment was announced by Harvard "The problems of crime and delinquency are among the most critical facing the nation today." He said Harvard and other Boston area universities should make a major contribution in meeting them.

Crime All Over

The center is planning to establish an Inter-University Council on Criminal Research to coordinate research in the area.

Vorenberg said that the center would try to promote collaboration by a variety of disciplines aimed at understanding the causes of crime and strengthening society's methods of dealing with it. He added that there is an urgent need for well-trained personnel in law enforcement agencies, and the center can help devise methods to train them.

The center will probably begin operations in the summer, he said. And the persons selected to receive the fellowships will arrive in the Fall.

In the last few years, the Ford Foundation has made similar large grants to support criminal justice research centers at Georgetown University, the University of Chicago, the University of California at Berkeley and at Davis, and the Vera Institute of Justice in New York.

Ford recently announced a grant of $464,000 to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for overall improvement of law enforcement and criminal justice.