Mark A.R. Kleiman

Mark Kleiman is Professor of Public Policy in the UCLA School of Public Affairs. He teaches courses on methods of policy analysis, on imperfectly rational decision-making at the individual and social level, and on drug abuse and crime control policy. His current focus is on reducing crime and incarceration by substituting  swiftness and predictability for severity in the criminal justice system generally and in community-corrections institutions specifically. Recent projects include studies of the HOPE probation system and of the relationship between drug policy and violence in Afghanistan and Mexico.

Mr. Kleiman is the author of Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control; of Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results;  and of When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment, listed by The Economist as one of the "Books of the Year" for 2009.  His latest book, Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (co-authored with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken) will be published in June by Oxford University Press. He edits the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis.

In addition to his academic work, Mr. Kleiman provides advice to local, state, and national governments on crime control and drug policy. Before coming to UCLA in 1995, he taught at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and at the University of Rochester. Outside of academia, he has worked for the U.S. Department of Justice (as Director of Policy and Management Analysis for the Criminal Division), for the City of Boston (as Deputy Director for Management of the Mayor's Office of Management and Budget), for Polaroid Corporation (as Special Assistant to the CEO, Edwin Land), and on Capitol Hill (as a legislative assistant to Congressman Les Aspin). He graduated from Haverford College (magna cum laude, majoring in political science, philosophy, and economics) and did his graduate work (M.P.P. and Ph.D.) at the Kennedy School.

Mr. Kleiman blogs at The Reality-Based Community, at samefacts.org .