Who we are:
The Vera Institute of Justice, founded in 1961, is a nonprofit criminal justice organization that strives to build just government institutions and safe communities free from the scourge of racism, white supremacy, profit, and inequity that is pervasive in this country’s legal systems. We are an “inside” lane organization that drives change at scale with ambitious public sector leaders who share our commitment to building anti-racist, reparative systems that deliver justice. We leverage our access to government to transform these systems and work collaboratively with stakeholders across many movements—including advocacy, grassroots, and grasstop organizations. Our role is to pilot solutions that are transformative and achievable, harness the power of evidence to drive effective policy and practice, and use advocacy and communications to change narratives and norms.
Vera has a staff of 300 people and offices in New York City, Washington, DC, Los Angeles, and New Orleans. We are an equal opportunity employer with a commitment to diversity in the workplace. We expect our staff to embody respect, independence, collaboration, commitment, anti-racism, and equity—both in our outward-facing work and the internal culture of our workplace. We value a range of experiences in people’s educational backgrounds and encourage people who have been directly impacted by the criminal justice system to apply.
Who you are:
The Jail Decarceration, Closing Mass Incarceration’s Front Door, and In Our Backyards teams have merged into one initiative. Together they work to change practices, policies, and laws that drive pretrial detention, criminalization, and excessive supervision in a set of priority states.
The Data Science Intern for the Jails Team at Vera is a 2-3 month opportunity for a college student, graduate student or recent grad to immerse themselves into working a full-time data role at non-profit organization. Their work on the In Our Backyards team within Vera will support federal, state and local advocacy and technical assistance meant to reverse the rise of mass incarceration.
The Data Science Intern will participate in all day-to-day team activities, ranging from project and sprint planning, code review sessions, pair programming, social activities, and more. They will be directly mentored by a data scientist on the team, who will help train the intern on a range of responsibilities, including data collection, processing and analysis, and building data analytics products.
In addition to day-to-day data tasks, the intern will develop a project that they will work on over the course of their internship that is relevant to their interests and experience. An intern on the Jails team will sharpen their skills in data analysis using coding tools such as Python, R and SQL using data on jail and prison populations, and also learn social science research methodology related to studying the criminal-legal system in America. The intern will also learn important data science tools within the Google Cloud Platform, such as BigQuery and Cloud VM, and workflow management platforms such as Apache Airflow. They will also learn how to lead and self-manage an end-to-end data science project in service of a Vera partner or team, with mentorship and guidance from Jails team data scientists and researchers.
Other day-to-day tasks may include exploratory or predictive analyses, data ingestion and computational infrastructure, analytical software development, web scraping, and producing data visualizations.
What you'll do:
Data analysis
- Integrate external sources of criminal justice data with our internally collected data
- Clean, analyze and visualize data for team and public use.
Community partnerships
- Provide consultation to other groups at Vera with technical needs
- Support community partners with customized data and analysis
Programming and code review
- Help maintain existing codebase through reviewing requests
Other ad hoc duties as needed
What qualifications are we looking for?
Required:
- Demonstrated proficiency working with data collection, processing, and statistical analysis in Python, with preference for experience using SQL and Python Pandas library.
- Experience using Tableau, Looker, D3, Python or similar tools to visualize complex data for both fellow data scientists and non-technical audiences.
- Commitment to advancing racial and gender equity in work
- Curiosity about emerging research and advocacy in the criminal justice space
- Wrestles with creative and concrete ways to use data to shift power and advance equity and inclusion
Preferred:
- Professional, personal or academic engagement with issues of mass incarceration and mass criminalization
Location:
Please note this role will report to our Brooklyn, NY; Washington, DC; Los Angeles, CA; or New Orleans, LA office. Vera interns and employees adhere to a hybrid schedule and are in-office on an alternating schedule. Full-time positions generally amount to 10 days per month. Part-time positions generally amount to 5 days per month.
Schedule:
The intern should be available to work up to 35 hours per week during the summer. The dates will be between June 5th and August 11th, with some flexibility to accommodate personal and academic schedules.
Compensation:
The compensation range for internships is $16.00 - $25.00 per hour. Actual compensation will vary depending on factors including but not limited to experience and performance. Applicants may choose to receive academic credit. For those who need to earn academic credit, Vera will gladly assist in working with the school or program to make arrangements and meet requirements.
How to apply:
Please submit cover letter and resume. In your cover letter, please explain why you are passionate about criminal justice reform and what you hope to gain from this internship.
Applications may also be faxed to:
ATTN: People Resources / Data Science Intern, Jails Team
Vera Institute of Justice
34 35th St, Suite 4-2A, Brooklyn, NY 11232
Fax: (212) 941-9407
Please use only one method (online, mail or fax) of submission.
No phone calls, please. Only applicants selected for interviews will be contacted.
As a federal contractor, and in order to ensure a healthy and safe work environment, Vera Institute of Justice is requiring all employees to be fully vaccinated and provide proof of their COVID-19 vaccine before their start date. Employees who cannot receive the vaccine because of a disability/medical contraindication or sincerely-held religious belief may request an accommodation (e.g., an exemption) to this requirement.
Vera is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer. All qualified applicants will be considered for employment without unlawful discrimination based on race, color, creed, national origin, sex, age, disability, marital status, sexual orientation, military status, prior record of arrest or conviction, citizenship status, current employment status, or caregiver status.
Vera works to advance justice, particularly racial justice, in an increasingly multicultural country and globally connected world. We value diverse experiences, including with regard to educational background and justice system contact, and depend on a diverse staff to carry out our mission.
For more information about Vera, please visit www.vera.org
