Vera Institute of Justice

Sam McCann is a senior writer in Vera’s communications and external affairs department, where he tells stories designed to reduce the harms of the criminal legal system and build meaningful justice in its place. He primarily writes about Vera’s place-based work in California, Louisiana, and New York, as well as its Reshaping Prosecution initiative.

Before joining Vera in 2022, Sam managed all communications for Neighborhood Defender Service, a national public defender office serving Detroit, Harlem, and Texas. He worked with advocates and their clients to lead communications and policy campaigns aimed at decarceration. Those efforts included exposing the conditions that killed 16 people on Rikers Island in 2021 and uncovering a surge of arrests and prosecutions targeting Black people in Detroit that amounted to stop-and-frisks.

He holds a BA in journalism from Ithaca College.