Policy Research Intern

The Innocence Project is a national litigation and public policy organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system to avoid future injustice.
 
The Innocence Project’s Policy Department takes the lessons learned from wrongful convictions and promotes procedural and policy reforms that can prevent their recurrence. To this end, the department implements national and state-based campaigns to change the criminal justice system. It also scrutinizes current procedures, protocols, policies and practices across the nation, researches best practices rooted in scientific research and creates model legislation.

The Fall 2009 Research Intern will contribute to the Policy department’s long-term efforts by assisting the Research Director in collecting and organizing data on DNA exonerations.

Responsibilities will include:

•    Searching for relevant information on exonerees (using Westlaw, other online resources, and through reading transcripts and other relevant documentation)
•    Data entry in SPSS
•    Cleaning data (looking for errors and discrepancies)
•    Running frequencies and cross tables

Specific qualifications include:

•    Requirement: Extensive experience using SPSS (data entry and running basic statistics)
•    At least one course in basic statistics
•    Experience using Westlaw is preferred, but not required
•    Preference for Grad students, or students in junior or senior year of undergrad, with focuses in Criminology or Sociology

We seek qualified candidates who can work at least 6 hours per week during the fall 2009 semester (with potential to extend the internship, depending on availability and need). This would take place at our headquarters in New York City.

While the policy department cannot compensate interns for their work, letters of recommendation and documentation of internship completion can be provided as well as course credit with participating schools.  Applications should include a thoughtful cover letter and resume for consideration.  Documents in MS Word, Word Perfect or Adobe Acrobat should be emailed to hr3@innocenceproject.org.  Please include “Policy-Research Intern” in the subject line.

Applications will be considered on a rolling basis until the position is filled.  Incomplete applications or applications including zip files will not be considered.  No phone calls, please.

The Innocence Project is an Equal Opportunity Employer committed to workplace diversity.