Katy Naples-Mitchell is Program Director of the Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management (PCJ) at Harvard Kennedy School.
In addition to her role at the PCJ, Katy volunteers as Special Litigation Advisor to the Criminal Justice Institute at Harvard Law School, where she writes and edits amicus briefs and supervises law students on appellate legal writing. Prior to joining the PCJ in 2022, Katy spent four years as a legal fellow and then staff attorney at the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, a research and policy institute at Harvard Law School. There she cultivated expertise in how the criminal legal system is affected by systemic racism, institutional racism, and implicit bias. She also developed rooted relationships with people and organizations directly affected by criminalization and incarceration, in Massachusetts and nationally, in line with the Houston Institute’s mission of fostering community justice.
Katy graduated cum laude with Distinction in Political Science from Yale University before earning a JD from CUNY School of Law, where she was a Graduate Fellow. After law school, she clerked for the Hon. Anne E. Thompson of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey. She has been the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the 2020 President’s Award from the Boston Bar Association given to attorneys and legal support staff working on impact litigation to decarcerate and promote public health in jails and prisons during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Her writing has appeared in the Stanford Journal of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, The Marshall Project, the Boston Globe, and WBUR’s Cognoscenti.
Contact Information
(617) 496-9154
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