Our Board

Premal Dharia spent nearly 15 years representing people charged with criminal offenses, after which she worked on civil rights litigation related to criminal system reform. She has launched and supported efforts to connect the work of community organizers and lawyers, and now serves as the executive director of the Institute to End Mass Incarceration. Ms. Dharia graduated from Brown University and from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where she was a finalist for the 2025 Alumni Impact Award. In March 2025, she was awarded the Albert J. Krieger Champion of Liberty Award from the Criminal Justice Section of the American Bar Association. She is an editor, along with Maria Hawilo and James Forman, Jr., of Dismantling Mass Incarceration: A Handbook for Change, published in 2024. 

“I am honored to join DC Justice Lab because of the transformative work it is doing to help all of us examine what we mean when we say ‘public safety’ — and to advance the reality of true safety for all.”