He was also the recipient of the John Norton Pomeroy Prize for academic achievement and the Arthur Garfield Hays Fellowship in Civil Liberties.

He worked for the Vera Institute of Justice from 1973 to 1977, where he managed demonstration programs on bail reform and victim-witness assistance.

He has also served as Chief Counsel to the U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, (1990), before becoming the Deputy Commissioner for Legal Matters in the New York City Police Department from 1990 to 1994, where he created the Civil Enforcement Initiative, a program that combined civil and criminal remedies to address local crime conditions.

From 2000 until becoming president of John Jay College in 2004, he was a Senior Fellow at the Urban Institute's Justice Policy Center, where he created a national research program on prisoner reentry.

He also served as Chair of the NRC Committee on the Causes and Consequences of High Rates of Incarceration, which produced a landmark report recommending significant reductions in the nation's prison population.

[3] Travis has taught courses on criminal justice, public policy, history, and law at Yale College, New York University Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, New York Law School, George Washington University, and John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Under Travis's leadership, John Jay has been transformed into a senior college offering a rigorous undergraduate liberal arts program coupled with an array of cutting-edge professional studies.

Travis also led the formation of the Justice Academy,[4] an educational partnership involving John Jay and six CUNY community colleges.

The Pre-Law Institute (PLI)[6] and Program for Research Initiatives in Science and Math (PRISM)[7] were created as part of his vision for supporting student success.

[8] Travis was instrumental in establishing nationally known centers at John Jay, including the Prisoner Reentry Institute[9] and the Prison to College Pipeline (P2CP),[10] National Network for Safe Communities,[11] Center for Media, Crime and Justice,[12] and more recently, the Institute for Innovation in Prosecution[13] and the Research Network on Misdemeanor Justice.

He will continue to serve as co-director of the Misdemeanor Justice Project[20] and co-chair of the Advisory Board for the Institute for Innovation in Prosecution[13] at John Jay College.

He will also continue to work on issues of mass incarceration, prisoner reentry, crime policy and criminal justice reforms.

[21] While at the National Institute of Justice, he established large government initiatives to assess crime trends, evaluate federal anti-crime efforts, advance forensic science, and bolster research on counterterrorism strategies.

[3] Among his many published writings, including book chapters, articles and monographs on constitutional law, criminal law and criminal justice policy, Travis co-edited (with Bruce Western and Steve Redburn) the 2014 National Research Council report "The Growth of Incarceration in the United States: Exploring Causes and Consequences," which found only a slight relationship between incarceration and lower crime rates and recommended a significant reduction in incarceration rates.

–Keynote Address at the 2016 Social Entrepreneurship Leadership Forum, April 22, 2016 –Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations, Levin College of Law, University of Florida, March 25, 2015 –Hoffinger Colloquium of the Center for Research on Crime and Justice, New York University School of Law, February 23, 2015 –Mailman School of Public Health Columbia University, September 19, 2013 –Keynote Speech at the Conference on Education for All by the Department of Education and the Ford Foundation, April 29, 2013 –Keynote Address on The Future of Crime Policy at the National Press Club, October 11, 2011 – Keynote Address at the Marquette Law School, February 20, 2009 – Keynote Address at The New York City Bar Association/2008 Orison S. Marden Lecture, March 19, 2008