Vivien Stern, Baroness Stern

Who is Vivien Stern, Baroness Stern?

Vivien Helen Stern, Baroness Stern CBE.

Stern was educated at Kent College and read English literature at Bristol University where she graduated in 1963. She was awarded an MLitt in 1964 and a Certificate in Education in 1965.

In 1970 she became a lecturer in education, and in 1977 became the director of NACRO, a post she held until 1996. She was a visiting fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford, from 1984 to 1991, and was Secretary General of Penal Reform International from 1989 until 2006. In 1997 she was appointed a Senior Research Fellow of London University, based at the International Centre for Prison Studies in King's College London.

She was awarded a CBE in 1992 and was raised to the peerage as Baroness Stern of Vauxhall in the London Borough of Lambeth in 1999. She has been a member of several parliamentary committees and is currently a member of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments. She lists her political interests as criminal justice, foreign affairs, human rights, international development, penal reform, and prisons, and has written several books, including Creating Criminals: prisons and people in a market society; Bricks of Shame: Britain's prisons; Failures in Penal Policy; Imprisoned by Our Prisons: a programme for reform; The Prisons We Deserve and A Sin Against the Future: imprisonment in the world.