Dartmouth College, B.A.
University of Pennsylvania Law School, J.D.
Professor Kevin R. Reitz joined the University of Minnesota law faculty in 2005. He teaches criminal law, criminal procedure, and professional responsibility. His scholarship is focused on criminal justice policy, including law and criminology. His recent book with Henry Ruth, The Challenge of Crime: Rethinking Our Response (Harvard University Press, 2003), considers issues of crime and punishment in American history, drug control policy, policing, gun control, and juvenile justice. Much of his writing has been in the field of sentencing law and policy, including 2005 articles in the Columbia and Stanford Law Reviews.
In addition to his research, Professor Reitz serves the criminal bar and the criminal justice community. In 1993, he organized the pilot meeting of the National Association of Sentencing Commissions, which has gone on to become a nationwide resource for states contemplating or undertaking the process of sentencing reform. He continues to work with NASC and with individual sentencing commissions nationwide. From 1989 to 1994, he served as Co-Reporter for the new edition of the ABA's Criminal Justice Standards for Sentencing. In June 2001, he was appointed by the American Law Institute to be Reporter for the first-ever revision of the Model Penal Code, limited to the Code's provisions on sentencing and corrections. This ambitious project has drawn wide attention from policy makers and scholars, including a full symposium issue of the Buffalo Criminal Law Review in 2003.
Professor Reitz graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1982, where he served as Comment Editor of the Law Review. Following graduation, he clerked for one year for Justice Jay A. Rabinowitz of the Supreme Court of Alaska in Fairbanks. From 1983 to 1988 he was an associate in the litigation department of Saul, Ewing, Remick, and Saul, in Philadelphia, where he handled criminal and civil cases. From 1988 to 2005 he taught at the University of Colorado School of Law in Boulder. In 2002 he was visiting fellow at the Institute of Criminology at the University of Cambridge, where he taught a seminar in sentencing policy and research.
The Oxford Handbook of Sentencing and Corrections (Oxford University Press, 2012) (co-editor with Joan Petersilia)
The Challenge of Crime: Rethinking our Response (Harvard University Press, 2003) (with Henry Ruth)
Book Chapters
Proof of Aggravating and Mitigating Facts at Sentencing, in Mitigation and Aggravation at Sentencing (Julian V. Roberts, ed., Cambridge University Press, 2011)
Sentencing, in Crime and Public Policy (James Q. Wilson & Joan Petersilia, eds., Oxford University Press, 2d ed., 2011)
The "Traditional" Indeterminate Sentencing Model, in The Oxford Handbook of Sentencing and Corrections (Joan Petersilia & Kevin Reitz, eds., Oxford University Press, 2011)
The Illusion of Proportionality: Desert and Repeat Offenders, in Previous Convictions at Sentencing: Theoretical and Applied Perspectives (Julian V. Roberts & Andrew von Hirsch, eds., Hart Pub., 2010)
Questioning the Conventional Wisdom of Parole Release Authority, in The Future of Imprisonment (Michael Tonry, ed., Oxford University Press, 2004)
The Disassembly and Reassembly of U.S. Sentencing Practices, in Sentencing and Sanctions in Western Countries (Richard Frase & Michael Tonry, eds., Oxford University Press, 2001)
Criminal Appeals in the United States, in Rechtsmittel Im Strafrecht: Eine International Vergleichende Untersuchung Zur Rechts-Wirklichkeit Und Effizienz Von Rechtsmitteln (Monika Becker & Jörg Kinzig, eds., Edition Iuscrim, 2000) (translated by Bettina Schütz-Gärdén)
Sentencing, in The Handbook of Crime and Punishment (Michael Tonry, ed., Oxford University Press USA, 1998)
Journal Articles
Demographic Impact Statements, O'Connor's Warning, and the Mysteries of Prison Release: Topics from a Sentencing Reform Agenda, 61 Florida Law Review 683 (2009)
The Reactions of Criminal Justice Professionals to a Law Review Symposium, 69 University of Colorado Law Review 1217 (1998) (with Alice Donnelly Madden)
Zimring, Hawkins, and the Macro Problems of Imprisonment, 87 Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 604 (1997) (reviewing Franklin Zimring & Gordon Hawkins, The Scale of Imprisonment (University of Chicago Press, 1991))
The American Experiment: Crime Reduction through Prison Growth, 4:3 European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research 74 (Sept. 1996)
Michael Tonry and the Structure of Sentencing Laws, 86 Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 1585 (1996) (reviewing Michael Tonry, Sentencing Matters (Oxford University Press, 1996))
Sentencing: Allocation of Authority, in Encyclopedia of Crime & Justice (Joshua Dressler, editor in chief, 2d ed., Macmillan Reference USA, 2002)
Other Publications
The Status of Sentencing Guideline Reforms in the U.S., 10:6 Overcrowded Times 1, 8-14 (Dec. 1999), reprinted in Penal Reform in Overcrowded Times 31 (Michael Tonry, ed., Oxford University Press, 2001)
American Bar Association to Publish New Sentencing Standards, 5:3 Overcrowded Times 5-6 (June 1994), reprinted in Sentencing Reform in Overcrowded Times: A Comparative Perspective 17 (Michael Tonry & Kathleen Hatlestad, eds., Oxford University Press, 1997) (with Curtis Reitz)
