QSIDE is proud to present our Data for Accountability, Transparency, and Advancement to Lower Incarceration for Transformation (DATA2LIFT) initiative. Through DATA2LIFT, QSIDE has connected leading researchers with community-based organizations and subject matter experts to create a centralized mechanism to collect and analyze key data related to incarceration at the national, state, and local level.

In addition to developing a centralized data warehouse, the DATA2LIFT initiative is developing a toolkit and accompanying training/workshops to build capacity within local organizations working to gather, clean, and analyze incarceration-related data. This will provide a greater understanding of what programs and initiatives are most successful in disrupting cycles of incarceration and allow the field to scale innovations for collective action.

Read our most recent study Paths to Decarceration for more information on incarceration alternatives. For any updates on the DATA2LIFT initiative and opportunities for involvement, become a QSIDE affiliate!

Aaron Chalfin is an Associate Professor of Criminology at the University of Pennsylvania, faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research, senior fellow at the Niskanen Center and a research affiliate at the University of Chicago Crime Lab where he previously spent two years as Research Director of the Crime Lab’s NYC office.

Aaron’s research focuses on the costs and benefits of policing, the preferences of police officers, place-based crime prevention and the determinants of crime victimization. Recent topics he has studied include the impact of expanding and contracting the size of municipal police departments in the United States, the effects of gang enforcement on community violence and the effects of municipal investments in street lighting on public safety. He is also interested in the advancement of social science research methods and has written on topics such as measurement errors in observational data, measuring spatial crime concentration and the empirical implications of administrative data linking.

Aaron’s research has been published in leading journals in criminology, public policy and economics including Journal of Quantitative Criminology, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management and American Economic Review: Insights.

Aaron holds a Ph.D. in Public Policy from the University of California, Berkeley and an M.A. in International and Development Economics from Yale University. He is also an alumnus of the Urban Institute’s Justice Policy Center where he worked as a research associate from 2006-2008.

Brittany Street is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Missouri and an affiliate of the Truman School of Public Affairs. She received her Ph.D. in Economics from Texas A&M University in 2019. Brittany was a postdoctoral fellow with the Criminal Justice Administrative Records System (CJARS) at the University of Michigan, where she is still an affiliate.

Her research focuses on the economics of crime and the criminal justice system and has been published in leading peer-reviewed journals, including the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Law and Economics, and Journal of Policy Analysis and Management.