Oren Gur, Director of Research, Policy Advisor; Director of District Attorney’s Transparency Analytics (Data) Lab; Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office
Oren Gur, PhD, joined the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office (DAO) in 2018 as the Director of Research and Policy Advisor to Larry Krasner and now also serves as
Director of the DA’s Transparency Analytics (DATA) Lab, a new unit that has received foundation support to improve the DAO’s ability to capture, analyze, and research the impact of prosecutorial discretion on individuals and communities. A lifelong Philadelphian, Oren wanted to work for a reform-minded District Attorney to help use data, research, and criminological theory to plan and implement policy to transform Philadelphia’s criminal justice system, and to make the office the most research-friendly prosecutor’s office in the country. Efforts germane to this conference include prosecutor-led bail reform, decriminalizing buprenorphine possession, expediting the adjudication of nonfatal shooting cases, and supporting research on topics including bail reform, accidental drug overdoses and criminal justice contacts, and the resentencing of juvenile lifers. Dr. Gur’s training is in ethnographic interviewing and neuroscience methodologies, with interests in the use of technologies in criminal justice. Prior to joining the DAO he was an Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at Penn State Abington. Oren holds a B.A. in Urban Studies and M.S. in Criminology from Penn and a Ph.D. in Criminology, Law, & Justice from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
