The Criminal Justice Fellowship program was set up in April 2015 for four years, i.e. 2015-2019. (https://tiss.edu/view/11/projects/all-projects/criminal-justice-fellowship-program/) whereby 35 graduates from Social Work and Law Programs were supported through a two-year period in 3 cohorts, to initiate and explore work in new themes or locations with a focus on criminal justice. 35 fellows worked in different states in India i.e. Delhi, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh; on different issues within the broad theme of criminal justice i.e. Mob violence, Legal Aid in Prison, rights of NT-DNT, rehabilitation of women and children exiting prostitution, working with children in Observation home, custodial deaths, sexual violence, transgender community and issues of women workers in the unorganised sector.

Drawing from the insight of the past fellowship experience and some of the recommendations made, we initiated a similar fellowship program from June 2022 for 4 Fellows with the same aim and objective to explore work in newer domains and newer geographies within ‘Criminology and Justice’ themes like rehabilitation, prevention, work with institutions and access to justice for both adult and juvenile justice system.