Ben Struhl

Ben Struhl is the Executive Director of the Crime and Justice Policy Lab (CJP) at the University of Pennsylvania. In that role, he works with governments and non-profits around the world to promote the use of research evidence in solving health and safety challenges that are facing disadvantaged communities. CJP forms a bridge between science and implementation, with a focus on preventing crime and violence, reforming the criminal justice system, and collaborating with communities to ensure that policy is done in ways that respect and uplift constituents.

At CJP, Struhl oversees the strategy and operations of projects ranging from violence prevention to prosecutorial reform to tracking the sale of illegal guns in the US. Struhl manages major projects in cities including Philadelphia, Baltimore, Boston, Oakland, and San Francisco, and engages in national and international policy work with partners such as ATF and USAID.

One significant CJP project that Struhl collaborates on is the lab’s innovative partnership with the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office (DAO) to conduct research on the role of prosecutor-driven policies in improving fairness and efficiency in the criminal justice system. The research team supports an overhaul of the DAO’s data infrastructure, conducts studies, and applies computational models to promote diversion and better services. Struhl has also worked with several other prosecutor’s offices across the US.

Prior to his work at Penn, Struhl launched and was Executive Director of the Center on Crime and Community Resilience at Northeastern University, leading projects in seven US cities and ten countries across the Caribbean and South America. Before Northeastern, Struhl worked at MIT’s Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) where he launched and managed the organization’s new division on crime research, as well as serving as the policy lead on J-PAL’s new North America office.

Struhl has also worked for the Mayor of Boston, Boston Public Schools, the Center for American Progress, and as a data analyst for Senator and then President Barack Obama. He has an M.P.P. from Georgetown University, and a B.A. from Brown University.