The Stanford Center for Racial Justice (SCRJ or Center) is excited to announce the appointment of Dan Sutton as our Manager of Innovation in Community Safety. Dan will help design and develop our ongoing research efforts to identify and understand innovative solutions to making our most marginalized communities more fair, safe, and equitable. This includes managing our work on a comprehensive Model Use of Force Policy, now in beta release, and providing oversight of our place-based research involving innovations in public safety. Dan will also engage with Stanford faculty, scholars, and researchers to develop additional research opportunities and partnerships.

Dan joins SCRJ from the Rhode Island Attorney General’s leadership team, where he designed and led criminal justice and police reform initiatives. This included an innovative program to equip police officers statewide with body-worn cameras and develop model policies. As a Special Assistant Attorney General, Dan pursued several drug manufacturers and distributors for their roles in fueling the opioid epidemic, securing hundreds of millions of dollars for communities across Rhode Island. He also advised the state’s top law enforcement official on a wide range of social, racial, and criminal justice issues.

Earlier in his career, Dan held senior economic policy positions in Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo’s Executive Office of Commerce, served as a senior policy advisor to the Emergency Manager of the City of Detroit during the city’s historic bankruptcy and restructuring, and was the assistant to the President’s advisor on the national security budget at the White House Office of Management and Budget during the Obama-Biden Administration.

Dan received his law degree from the University of Michigan Law School, where he was a member of the Michigan Journal of Race & Law, and is a graduate of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. He is relocating to the Bay Area with his wife, Emi, and their young son, Henry.

SCRJ welcomes Dan to our team with tremendous excitement!