Vera Institute names Insha Rahman president

The Vera Institute of Justice and Vera Action, its sister 501(c)(4) organization, named Insha Rahman its new president on Tuesday, marking a new era for the national criminal justice reform group. Rahman – who was born in India and grew up in Saudi Arabia before moving to the U.S. at the age of 14 – is the first Muslim, first South Asian and first immigrant leader of the progressive organization, which was founded in New York in 1961.

Rahman most recently served as Vera’s vice president of advocacy and partnerships and led Vera Action. Before that, she oversaw the Vera Institute’s New York work. She was a key part of the coalition that won state-level bail reform in 2019 – an accomplishment that sparked an intense political backlash.

Vera had focused for six decades on crafting evidence-supported criminal justice policy, but Rahman said the way “bail reform” became a scapegoat taught Vera that it wasn’t enough to focus on policy; it also had to consider the politics of criminal justice issues. “One of the projects that emerged from that moment of reckoning with managing backlash is a project that I lead now through our 501(c)(4) to tackle the politics of crime,” she said. “And we have done more work and more research than anybody else on what is it that the American public, including here in New York, but nationally, what is it that Americans want when it comes to issues of crime and public safety?”

Since Vera operates across the country, it’s focused on messaging around crime that can potentially appeal to libertarians and conservatives as well as Democrats. “We've worked in a bipartisan way, Rahman said. “In a very divided country, we know that we won't win just in blue states like New York and California. We won't end mass incarceration if we're only focused there. And so we work in very purple to red states, and we make progress there.”

But that bipartisanship has a limit. As City & State reported last year, Vera was targeted by the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, which suddenly terminated its federal grant funding. Vera is leading a class action lawsuit against the federal government to get the funding restored, which is ongoing.

Looking ahead, Rahman said Vera is very excited about New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s proposal for a new Department of Community Safety and hopes that the city will tap its expertise as it looks to set up the new department. “We have helped jurisdictions across the country – from Durham, North Carolina, to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to New Orleans, Louisiana – actually set up departments of community safety,” Rahman said. “This is something we do and know a lot about, and we are eager to help New York City build out a Department of Community Safety that would really – if it's set up with the scope and scale that Mayor Mamdani talks about – really be sort of a beacon for the rest of the country.”