Project Policy Analyst

Special Instructions to Applicants

Please include a cover letter with your application submission. This is a 1 year contract with the possibility of extension and/or conversion to a career appointment.

The Behind Bars Data Project gathers, standardizes, publishes, and analyzes open-source data on health conditions in U.S. carceral facilities. The foundation of our work is the Project’s carceral mortality database, a comprehensive, public accounting of the most basic facts about mortality behind bars: how many and which people died in carceral facilities in recent years. Beginning in 2019—just before prisons and jails across the country became the epicenters of COVID outbreaks—the federal government effectively ceased its publication, and much of its collection, of carceral mortality data.

This reporting failure seriously impedes the public’s ability to know who is dying in prison and why, what racial disparities exist in mortality outcomes, and ultimately what can be done to reduce preventable deaths and hold officials accountable. The Behind Bars Data Project launched in March 2020 (as the COVID Behind Bars Data Project) and was the leading data resource for understanding COVID in prisons.

In February 2023, the Project received funding from Arnold Ventures and other sources to transition to a focus on all-cause mortality. The Project’s current research agenda includes national- and state-level demography of mortality in prisons and jails and case studies on facility-level prison conditions that may drive mortality. We are a small team and work collaboratively, albeit largely remotely. The work we produce is intended for both technical and broader public audiences.

Examples include the following:
• Nationwide database of deaths in custody, housed on Git Hub
• Published research in public health journals (e.g., JAMA, AJPM, Health Affairs)
• Blog posts and white papers on data trends, policies, and current events
• Reporting coverage drawing attention to urgent issues (New York Times)
• Testimony and other advocacy for local, state, and federal policymakers.

The Project seeks a Research Analyst to join our interdisciplinary team of data scientists and policy researchers. Tasks will involve collaboratively advancing our research through data management (data collection, data cleaning, database management) and research support (IRB management, literature reviews, contributing to grant and academic articles with the research team, and research meeting coordination).

UCLA provides a full pay range. Actual salary offers consider factors, including budget, prior experience, skills, knowledge, abilities, education, licensure and certifications, and other business considerations. Salary offers at the top of the range are not common. Visit UC Benefit package to discover benefits that start on day one, and UC Total Compensation Estimator to calculate the total compensation value with benefits.

• Experience in working with diverse collaborators with varying levels of data literacy. (Required)
• Proficient in R or another programming language to manipulate data and draw insights from large, complex datasets. (Required)
• 1-2 years work experience (or the equivalent in internships and/or practicums) in research, including data analysis and dataset production. (Preferred)
• Prior experience building or maintaining productionized ETL pipelines in R or Python. (Preferred)
• Prior experience working with diverse collaborators with varying levels of data literacy. (Required)
• Familiarity with git/Git Hub or another version control system. (Required)
• Familiarity with or interest in public health and criminal justice research. (Required)
• Outstanding judgment, attention to detail, and written and oral communication skills. (Required)
• Experience with web-scraping and using OCR to convert data from unstructured sources to a machine-readable format. (Preferred)
• Experience creating impactful data visualizations for social media and reports. (Preferred)
• Lived experience with and/or knowledge of the criminal legal system. (Preferred)
• Experience with conducting literature reviews and drafting materials for peer review. (Required)

• Bachelor's Degree (Required) Or
• Bachelor's Degree in STEM field, or significant undergraduate research experience involving data analysis and dataset production. (Preferred)

• Background Check:
  Continued employment is contingent upon the completion of a satisfactory background investigation.
• Age Requirement:
  Candidate(s) must be 18 years or older to be eligible to be hired.

Monday-Friday | 8am-5pm PST

Union/Policy Covered: 99-Policy Covered