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 current research agenda investigates the development and consequences of local crime policy in the U.S. My dissertation project examines how cities embedded in the federated structure of the American political economy prioritize and devise their crime policy agendas via incarceration, policing, and non-carceral alternatives.  More broadly, I'm interested in 1) how fiscal and policy decentralization shapes the allocation of public goods in the U.S. and 2) how such outcomes shape how vulnerable populations experience and participate in our democratic system. My work has been supported by the National Science Foundation and the American Political Science Association. 

Prior to coming to Berkeley, I received a B.S. from Cornell University in Development Sociology 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.