Can Haiti Reclaim Pre-Earthquake Justice Sector Reform?
Prior to the earthquake that devastated Haiti in January 2010, the nation’s judicial system was struggling to put a credible justice system in place, and there were some signs of increased police accountability, improved training for judges and reductions in deadly violence in its overcrowded prisons. The earthquake set the effort back, but Harvard Kennedy School Professor Christopher Stone argues that all has not been lost. In a new paper, Stone, the Daniel and Florence Guggenheim professor of the practice of criminal justice and faculty chair of the Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management, finds hope for renewed judicial reform in the midst of a fragile environment. “A field visit in March 2010 in preparation of this paper found police and prisons thrown back into reliance on rough justice, the courts closed, and the new training facility commandeered to house other government functions,” wrote Stone. “As one Haitian civilian described the situation to the researchers, the
