Bio
Jonathan Ben-Menachem is a Ph.D candidate in the Sociology department at Columbia University, a Paul F. Lazarsfeld Fellow, and a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. He researches the politics of American criminalization using a variety of quantitative and qualitative methods. Most recently, he published a study about the causal effect of police stops on voter turnout in the American Political Science Review. His ongoing dissertation research examines the working practices of American crime journalists in local newsrooms.
Jonathan previously worked at the Fines and Fees Justice Center, where he designed and managed the organization’s Clearinghouse, a research library documenting American fines and fees practices & efforts to end related harms. He has also published several articles about the politics of crime and punishment in publications including the Washington Post, Slate, Defector, Inquest, and more.