Vera Institute of Justice

Jacob Kang-Brown is a senior research associate in the Center on Sentencing and Corrections at the Vera Institute of Justice. He is the lead researcher on the In Our Backyards project exploring the use of incarceration across the United States. At Vera, Jacob has conducted research on school discipline, status offense reform, policing, hate crime, language access, jail populations, and solitary confinement in prisons. Jacob conducted a National Institute of Justice funded project on improving responses to hate crime by researching current practices in Los Angeles County and New Jersey. Jacob has also helped develop and evaluate re-entry services for people leaving prison and juvenile facilities, such as the Youth Futures Program and the NYCHA Family Re-entry Pilot Program.

Prior to working at Vera, Jacob worked for the County of Los Angeles Commission on Human Relations, and was a public service intern with the City of Chicago’s Commission on Human Relations. Jacob received a BA in sociology with an emphasis in urban studies from Wheaton College, and a MA in social ecology and PhD in criminology, law & society with an emphasis in critical theory from the University of California, Irvine.

Jacob’s writing has appeared in The New York Review of Books, Contexts, The Atlantic, Dissent, USA Today, and American Jail Magazine.