Jerome G Miller

Dr. Jerome G. Miller (December 8, 1931 – August 7, 2015) was a visionary American criminologist, social worker, corrections administrator, and author who revolutionized the United States juvenile justice system through radical deinstitutionalization. Born in Wahpeton, North Dakota, he initially studied philosophy at Maryknoll College before serving for a decade as a psychiatric social worker in the U.S. Air Force and earning a doctorate in social work from the Catholic University of America. He vaulted into national prominence in 1969 upon his unexpected appointment as the Commissioner of Youth Services for Massachusetts. Frustrated by the pervasive brutality, ineffective reformatories, and institutional isolation he witnessed, Miller executed the historic "Massachusetts Experiment" by completely closing the state's juvenile prisons and placing youth into far less restrictive community-based care. He later co-founded the National Center on Institutions and Alternatives (NCIA) to continue advocating for decarceration. As an author, he codified his institutional reform methodologies in his 1991 memoir, Last One Over the Wall, and achieved immense critical acclaim for his groundbreaking 1996 civil rights exposé, [Search and Destroy: African-American Males in the Criminal Justice System]. The tightly argued survey meticulously unmasks deep-seated racial biases across American police departments, courts, and social science tracking, warning that the "War on Drugs" and a burgeoning corporate prison industry were systematically targetting and disenfranchising young black men.