Three lawyers are among this year's MacArthur Foundation 'genius grant' winners
The three attorneys are (from left to right): sujatha baliga, Danielle Citron and Lisa Daugaard. Photos provided by the MacArthur Foundation.
Lawyers working in the field of criminal justice reform, restorative justice and cyber harassment are among this year’s 26 MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” winners.
The winners will each receive a no-strings-attached $625,000 stipend, report NPR and the Associated Press. The complete list of winners is here.
The lawyer winners are:
• sujatha baliga, a lawyer in Oakland, California, who is director of the Restorative Justice Project. The project provides training and assistance to communities working to bring together people who are harmed, those who are responsible for the harm and affected communities. The process is intended to help survivors heal while also seeking to break cycles of recidivism and violence. She is working in the areas of juvenile justice and intimate partner and sexual violence.
• Danielle Citron, a Boston University law professor who is working to raise awareness of cyber harassment and proposing reforms to address the most extreme forms of online abuse. She has expanded her efforts to address the concept of sexual privacy as a distinct privacy interest that warrants recognition and protection.
• Lisa Daugaard, a criminal justice reformer and former public defender who has developed an alternative to standard drug-law enforcement. She is primary architect of a program in King County, Washington, that replaces punitive policing with services that address underlying causes for participating in the drug trade. Suspected offenders who are diverted into the program may receive social services that include housing, health care, job training, drug treatment and mental health support. The program is expanding to other communities.
