The Pinkerton Fellows

Despite limited resources and often overworked staff, a number of innovative New York nonprofits manage to provide lifechanging alternatives to young people caught up in the criminal justice system. To support these organizations and attract talented students and scholars to the youth justice field, The Pinkerton Foundation joined with the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in 2012 to develop a unique fifteen-month paid fellowship program. Working two full summers, the month of January and fourteen hours a week during the school year, fifteen to seventeen John Jay undergraduate and graduate students serve at alternative-toincarceration, post-prison reentry and other community-based organizations. The Fellows also participate in an academic seminar on the role of nonprofit organizations in the justice system. “Our grants are to John Jay, but the immediate beneficiaries are the young people served by youth justice programs throughout the city,” said Rick Smith, the Foundation’s president. “In the long run, we hope that this highly competitive program will empower the college’s best and brightest to consider careers in youth justice.”