Associate Research Director -SAFE Initiative-Center on Immigration and Justice-Brooklyn, NY

Job title: Associate Research Director -SAFE Initiative-Center on Immigration and Justice-Brooklyn, NY

Company: Vera Institute

Job description: Who we are:

The Vera Institute of Justice is powered by hundreds of advocates, researchers, and activists working to transform the criminal legal and immigration systems until they’re fair for all. Founded in 1961 to advocate for alternatives to money bail in New York City, Vera is now a national organization that partners with impacted communities and government leaders for change. We develop just, antiracist solutions so that money doesn’t determine freedom; fewer people are in jails, prisons, and immigration detention; and everyone is treated with dignity. Vera’s headquarters is in Brooklyn, New York, with offices in Washington, DC, New Orleans, and Los Angeles. Learn more about life at Vera; click .

The Center on Immigration and Justice: For the past two decades, Vera’s Center on Immigration and Justice (CIJ) has been partnering with government leaders, advocates, the immigration legal services community, and the public to build a movement for publicly funded deportation defense for immigrants facing deportation. We are testing models, piloting solutions, and generating evidence in support of this goal through programs like our Legal Orientation Programs, Unaccompanied Children Program, National Qualified Representative Program, and SAFE Initiative. There is an urgency to this work. The federal government booked more than half a million people into immigration detention in 2019, including tens of thousands of immigrant children. More than 6.5 million people have been deported in the past few decades alone. Our research has shown it is almost impossible to advance a successful defense, especially from inside detention, without the assistance of an attorney, and our programs are demonstrating the benefits that accrue when due process is available to all persons in the United States, regardless of citizenship status. We believe with a greater body of evidence demonstrating the long-term human, social, and economic effects of detention and deportation, alongside the benefits of counsel, we can get closer to a world in which justice is available to everyone.

The SAFE Initiative: The SAFE Initiative is a unique collaboration among governments, immigration legal service providers, and advocates working together to build a movement for universal representation. Universal representation advances a public defender system for people facing deportation, one in which every person facing deportation is represented by a lawyer regardless of income, race, national origin, or history with the criminal legal system. SAFE is currently implementing programs in 21 jurisdictions in 11 states. SAFE has catalyzed momentum for local and state funded deportation defense and is driving a national movement toward federal systemic change.

Research at Vera: The use of data to inform policy and drive change is at the core of Vera’s approach to reform. More than 50 researchers working across the institute use a range of methods and approaches to address some of the most pressing social justice issues of our time; from the drivers of mass incarceration, to the unmet need for legal representation for immigrants, to the racism and inequity that undercut American policing and prosecution. Increasingly, we are using participatory methods and other inclusive strategies to ensure that our analysis reflects, and is informed by, the perspectives of those who are most directly impacted by U.S. criminal legal and immigration systems and works deliberately against systemic oppression.

What you’ll do:

The Associate Research Director is a new position Vera has created to support its initiatives, allowing us to better work to achieve change at scale. The Associate Research Director for the SAFE Initiative is a senior-level position on the SAFE team and member of the SAFE leadership team. This position will partner with the SAFE Initiative Director, Associate Director, and Associate Advocacy Director to ensure that research, evidence, and knowledge production are a core component of achieving SAFE’s theory of change and impact strategy. The Associate Research Director for SAFE will oversee all aspects of research on the team, including working collaboratively with SAFE and research leadership to build, staff, oversee, carry out, publish, and communicate about the research. You will supervise a research team of 5 to 8 staff across a range of levels and disciplinary backgrounds who work full-time on this project or between this project and other core immigration initiatives.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Drive the SAFE Initiative’s research agenda, focused on advancing evidence and strategic publications in support of a movement for government-funded universal representation that centers the dignity and interests of impacted people and contributes to narrative change and broader advocacy efforts. This involves hands-on research, management of a research agenda and deliverables, and supervision of an interdisciplinary research team already engaged in a range of activities in support of SAFE’s goals.
• Work as part of the SAFE leadership team and with the director of immigration research to collaboratively define and refine research strategies and tactics in support of SAFE’s goals. Bring a creative use of quantitative methods and broader social science approaches to the urgent need to build evidence showing the human impacts of U.S. immigration policy and the government-funded universal representation Vera is advancing through SAFE.
• This includes hands-on research work, including evaluation and descriptive, causal, and predictive analyses that rely on program and administrative data and publicly-available datasets on immigration enforcement, court, detention, and legal representation.
• Expand partnerships and approaches that engage directly impacted people in shaping SAFE’s research and evidence, including through participatory methods.
• Support, supervise, and mentor SAFE team researchers across a range of career trajectories, disciplinary backgrounds, and methodologies, doing so through an approach that centers collaboration, power building, and undoing racism and white supremacy culture in our workplace and work
• Lead research-based communication and strategy, working closely with the SAFE Associate Director of Advocacy, program site leads, and core allies in the field to deploy CIJ’s research in support of local and national advocacy efforts and develop and ensure accuracy of evidence-based messaging and materials.

• Center race equity and a critical racial justice lens in SAFE research and publications, helping to advance a broader body of crimmigration research connecting the criminal legal and immigration systems in support of Vera’s reform efforts.
• Coordinate with other senior immigration researchers working in support of CIJ’s broader aims, especially to demonstrate evidence in support of universal representation, dismantle immigration detention, shrink the criminal legal system to immigration system pipeline, and radically rethink our nation’s immigration adjudication system.

Who you are:

Education and Experience:

Required:

• 5+ years experience conducting and leading mixed-methods social science research
• Advanced training in social science research, especially through a graduate degree program, or expertise and experience equivalent to advanced methodological training
• Management and mentoring skills and experience in a team-based, collaborative workplace
• Exceptional written and oral communications skills, including authoring and editing research reports in written and visual formats accessible to broader audiences, and translating and presenting research findings to community-based partners, advocates, funders, and media through a variety of written and visual media

Preferred:

• Experience partnering with advocacy and strategic communications professionals is a plus.
• Experience conducting community-based research, research with people who have experienced trauma, and/ or research with people who have been detained or incarcerated

Required Knowledge, Skills & Abilities: (e.g. Proficient with Microsoft Office Suite or similar software)

• Expertise in immigration and ideally crimmigration / criminal legal system research: This includes research relevant to building a public defender system for immigrants and its role in broader immigration and criminal legal system reform efforts, immigration policy and demographics, and publicly available immigration datasets and statistics — especially on immigration court, detention, and deportation.
• Advanced quantitative skills, including hands-on experience with both predictive and causal analyses, and ability to think creatively about how to use statistical modelling to address pressing policy questions.
• Strong preference for experience conducting statistical analysis in R and/or ability to quickly get up to speed in R based on experience working in similar statistical software packages
• Experience or ability to quickly learn GitHub for code review preferred
• Experience with qualitative software preferred

Preferred Skills:

• Fluency in a language other than English spoken by people impacted by immigration enforcement in the United States
• Lived experience and/or demonstrated commitment to using research and analysis to address and undo racism and inequity in the immigration and criminal legal systems.

Other Important Information:

• The preferred location for this position is in Vera’s Brooklyn, NY office. Candidates interested in working in Vera’s D.C. or Los Angeles offices will also be considered. For the pendency of the COVID-19 pandemic, this position will begin remotely until the reopening of Vera’s offices.
• People with diverse backgrounds, including those who bring lived experiences that expand the perspectives of our team, are especially encouraged to apply.
• Some travel is required on an infrequent basis.

How to apply

Please submit a cover letter and resume. Applications will be considered on a rolling basis until the position is filled. Online submission in PDF format (through Vera’s career page) is preferred. No phone calls, please. Only applicants selected for interviews will be contacted.

ATTN: Human Resources / Communications Manager SAFE
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.

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

Expected salary:

Location: Brooklyn, NY

Job date: Sun, 30 May 2021 07:40:01 GMT

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