Heath Grant, Faculty Fellow

Prior to returning to the full-time faculty of John Jay College of Criminal Justice in 2013, Dr. Grant was most recently the Director of Research of the Police Executive Research Forum, a leading Washington DC organization dedicated to advancing law enforcement and crime prevention internationally. Formerly, as CEO, of Success for Kids (SFK), he oversaw the planning, implementation, curriculum development, partnerships& strategic program alliances and evaluation of the organization’s international programs and services. A 15 year program executive, his experience and innovative style positioned SFK’s unique approach to Social Emotional Learning a sought after program for public schools and correctional facilities throughout Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas.On behalf of the Asia Foundation, he also recently developed training curricula for the Bangladesh Police on community policing. He subsequently conducted an assessment there related to the status of community policing in the country.He led a research effort for the State Department to assess youth violence issues in the Caribbean and make recommendations for systems wide change in policing and corrections programming.

Throughout the last two decades, he has helped to develop and evaluate school-based programs to promote youth resiliency. To this end he has provided training and technical assistance to many youth corrections programs and police agencies internationally.With the Culture of Lawfulness program created for the US State Department, hehelped develop, train teachers, and expand this curriculum to foster social responsibility that has reached thousands of youth throughout the world. His keen executive program management skills have helped to secure and manage more than $20 million in program support throughout his career.

Prior to joining SFK in 2005, as Director of Research and Training, he was a senior consultant for the “The Culture of Lawfulness Project” sponsored by the National Strategy Information Center (NSIC) -a nongovernmental educational organization based in Washington, DC. His unique approach to the program was instrumental in helping partners in the Americas and the Middle East foster societal support for the rule of law by engaging governmental and civil society leaders. Today this program continues to reach over one million children per year around the world/

He is an expert in Social Emotional Learning, the correlation between law and society, and juvenile violence prevention and has published a number of books, training manuals and articles on these subjects. He is the author of Building a Culture of Lawfulness, 2024and Law Enforcement in the Twenty-first Century, 2007.

In sum, Dr. Grant has worked with the US Department of State, National Institute of Justice and other agencies in Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Africa to develop programs focused on building a culture of lawfulness, counter crime and corruption(including training programs for the Colombian National Police and Federal Police of Mexico). In addition to consulting at the Department of State and other agencies, Dr. Grant has taught criminal justice, law enforcement, at the graduate and undergraduate level.

He has received numerous awards and honors and was awarded the highly recognized Bradley Post-doctoral Fellowship at Georgetown University; the Arthur Niederhoffer Fellowship and received the Prestigious Arts ’50 Scholarship.