Jaclyn Davis is a Postdoctoral Research Scholar working on the Emerging Adults Justice Project, Probation and Parole Reform Project, and the Neighborhood Justice Project. Across these initiatives she combines administrative, survey, and spatial data to identify trends and inequalities in policing, incarceration, and supervision throughout the United States.
Jaclyn completed her Ph.D. in Political Science at Columbia University, with a concentration in Comparative Politics. Her research examines the role of historical legacies in shaping conflict dynamics and reinforcing social divisions today. She is primarily interested in understanding the different ways that local justice systems such as courts, police, or informal norms take shape over time, and the ways that these systems perpetuate or alleviate inequalities.
She conducted fieldwork for her dissertation in the Philippines, combining in person and remote interviews. Prior to and during her graduate studies Jaclyn also conducted fieldwork in US prisons, jails, courts, and communities on the topic of community reintegration after incarceration. She uses archival research, semi-structured interviews, survey experiments, and administrative records to generate new datasets and novel measures in pursuit of developing more equitable and resilient justice policies.