Marc M. Howard (L’11) is a professor of government and law and also the director of the Prisons and Justice Initiative at Georgetown University, which he founded in 2016. Under Howard’s leadership, the Prisons and Justice Initiative provides educational opportunities for incarcerated individuals and hosts reentry programs for returning citizens. He is also the founder and president of the Frederick Douglass Project for Justice, a non-profit organization that launched in 2020 and allows members of free society to connect with people in prisons in order to discover firsthand our common humanity and advocate for systemic change.

Howard’s scholarly research addresses the deep challenges of contemporary democracy and the tragedy of criminal justice and prisons in America. His most recent book is Unusually Cruel: Prisons, Punishment, and the Real American Exceptionalism.

Howard is also a prize-winning teacher, whose Prisons and Punishment course has become one of Georgetown’s most sought-after courses. The students in his Making an Exoneree course — co-taught with his childhood friend, Marty Tankleff, who was himself wrongfully imprisoned for almost 18 years — re-investigate likely wrongful conviction cases and create documentaries that suggest innocence and advocate for exonerations. Their project has already contributed to the exonerations and releases of six individuals, with more to come.