Welcome to my site! 

I'm Rebekah Jones, a fifth-year PhD candidate at the University of California, Berkeley's Department of Political Science. This academic year (2024-2025), I'm also a Berkeley Empirical Legal Studies (BELS) Graduate Fellow at the Center for Study of Law and Society (CSLS). 

My research explores how local political institutions shape the allocation of public goods—and how those distributions, in turn, affect how groups experience and participate in democratic systems. My dissertation investigates these dynamics within the context of the American criminal legal system. Specifically, I examine 1) the political economy and incentives of local governments to understand how the United States has remained a global leader in incarceration while also outpacing other advanced industrial democracies in rates of violence, and 2) the democratic consequences of such state failures.  I do so using a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods, including spatial analysis, interviews, and causal inference designs. 

More broadly, I’m interested in local politics, comparative political economy, political geography, and public goods provision. My research has been published in Perspectives on Politics and State Politics and Policy Quarterly. 

Prior to coming to Berkeley, I received a B.S. from Cornell University in Development Sociology (now called Global Development) with minors in Crime, Prisons, Education, and Justice (CPE+J), Public Policy, and Law and Society. Outside of academia, I love writing music and connecting with other artists. 

Here's my CV, and here's my Twitter account.