Clair A Cripe

Clair Cripe's career combines work in the corrections field and teaching in the area of constitutional law. His preparation for this work came from education at Oberlin College (A.B.) and at Harvard Law School (J.D.). After 3 years as a Navy JAG officer and a year as a trial lawyer for the Food and Drug Administration, he joined the Federal Bureau of Prisons in 1962, when its legal office was formed. In 1975, he became General Counsel of that agency, where he served until his retirement in 1990...See more

Clair Cripe's career combines work in the corrections field and teaching in the area of constitutional law. His preparation for this work came from education at Oberlin College (A.B.) and at Harvard Law School (J.D.). After 3 years as a Navy JAG officer and a year as a trial lawyer for the Food and Drug Administration, he joined the Federal Bureau of Prisons in 1962, when its legal office was formed. In 1975, he became General Counsel of that agency, where he served until his retirement in 1990. As a member of the Bureau of Prisons executive staff, Clair was closely involved in policy decision-making for many years. He supervised hundreds of lawsuits involving prisoners' rights and the management of prisons. He personally handled many cases, from the trial court level to the Supreme Court. He initiated and personally taught training classes for corrections workers, from entry training for new employees to advanced corrections management. He personally reviewed all policy issuances of the federal prison agency.He developed and supervised many new prison programs (including disciplinary procedures for inmates, training for agency paralegals, and an inmate grievance system). Mr. Cripe taught for 15 years at the National Law Center (George Washington University) in the graduate law division. This wasa course in the law of sentencing and of constitutional rights for prisoners. He also taught a course in the law of corrections at the University of Maryland (Criminal Justice & Criminology Department). He was a frequent speaker at training seminars at the American Correctional Association and for its affiliates. He also presented seminars for federal judges on the law of sentencing and of prisoners' rights. See less