Vivien Stern, Baroness Stern

Vivien Helen Stern, Baroness Stern CBE (born 25 September, 1941).

The daughter of Jewish parents, Stern was educated at Kent College, and read English literature at Bristol University from 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 1984-1991, and was Secretary General of Penal Reform International from 1989 until 2006. In 1997 she joined the International Centre for Prison Studies at King's College London as a Senior Research Fellow.

She was raised to the peerage as Baroness Stern, of Vauxhall in the London Borough of Lambeth in 1999. She is a member of the Parliamentary Joint Committee of Human Rights. She lists her political interests as criminal justice, foreign affairs, human rights, international development, penal reform, and prisons, and has written the books "Creating Criminals: Prisons and People in a Marke Society", "Bricks of shame: Britain's prisons", "Failures in Penal Policy", "Imprisoned by Our Prisons: A Programme for Reform (Fabian Series)", "The Prisons We Deserve" and "A Sin Against the Future: Imprisonment in the World".

Baroness Stern is a patron of a number of charities including the Prisoners' Education Trust, New Bridge Foundation, the Royal Philanthropic Society, Clean Break, and Rethink.

She was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1992. She has honorary doctorates from Bristol University and Oxford Brookes University and was made an honorary fellow of the London School of Economics in 1996. She is married to Professor Andrew Coyle.

External links

* [http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199899/minutes/990713/ldminute.htm Announcement of her introduction at the House of Lords] House of Lords minutes of proceedings, 13 July 1999