Biography

Executive Director, Stanford Criminal Justice Center and Lecturer in Law

A leading voice on criminal law and criminal justice policy issues, Kara Dansky is the executive director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center. At SCJC, Dansky develops nonpartisan analyses and recommendations that aid public officials, legal practitioners, and the public in understanding criminal justice policy at the state and national levels. She also coordinates major symposia and conferences on policies related to crime control, sentencing and corrections, and helps students prepare for careers in criminal law and criminal justice policy. As a Lecturer in Law at Stanford Law School, Dansky teaches courses on criminal practice, sentencing law and policy, and the criminal court system, and supervises the law school's criminal law externship program. Additional research interests include legal and policy concerns associated with DNA collection and the success of diversion courts.

In 2007-2008 Dansky conducted the Stanford Executive Sessions on Sentencing and Corrections - a policy working group designed to encourage collaborative criminal justice policy development at the national, state, regional, and local levels by: promoting public/private partnerships between different levels of government in the criminal justice arena; creating opportunities for the use of social science research to aid in the development and implementation of empirically-validated, data-driven criminal justice programs and policies; and serving as a public service consultant to public officials at all levels of government. She also serves as Vice President of the National Association of Sentencing Commissions, a national organization created to facilitate the exchange of sentencing information, ideas, data, expertise, and experiences on issues related to sentencing policies, sentencing guidelines and sentencing commissions. Before joining Stanford, Dansky was a staff attorney for the Society of Counsel Representing Accused Persons in Seattle.

In the News

• Parole Court Sends Thousands To Prison
  Daily Journal, December 15, 2009
• Death Penalty Is Considered A Boon By Some California Inmates
  Los Angeles Times, November 11, 2009
• Homecoming rape: When do bystanders become accomplices?
  The Christian Science Monitor, October 29, 2009
• Concerns of jury influence helped move Mehserle case, experts say
  Oakland Tribune, October 20, 2009
• ACLU Challenges DNA Testing
  KQED Radio - Forum, October 13, 2009

Courses & Programs

Courses

• Criminal Law Externship Seminar

Publications & Cases

• Kara Dansky, Other States Have Formed Successful Panels, Sacramento Bee, September 27, 2009, pg. 2E.
• Kara Dansky, Imagining State's Next Court Move After Prison Order, The Recorder, August 14, 2009, pg. 4.
• Kara Dansky, The High Cost of Prisons (Letter to the Editor), New York Times, April 1, 2009.
• Kara Dansky, Understanding California Sentencing (Symposium: Confronting the Crisis: Current State Initiatives and Lasting Solutions for California Prison Conditions) 43 University of San Francisco Law Review 45 (Summer 2008).
• Kara Dansky, State Should Revise Criminal Sentencing System, Daily Journal, January 30, 2007.
• Kara Dansky, Three Good Reasons for Sentencing Commission, Daily Journal, December 20, 2006.