Guide for Hiring Corrections Analysts

Introduction

This guide offers leaders in corrections guidance on building teams that can provide data and analytics support to their agencies. It includes the following sections:

1. Why Data and Analysis Are Vital to Effective Correctional Operations
2. How to Structure and Support a Research and Analysis Office
3. How to Hire Entry-Level Corrections Analysts
4. How to Conduct Targeted Hiring for Higher-Level Corrections Analysts
5. Appendix: Interview Questions

The tool also provides tiers of basic skills, knowledge, and experiences that corrections analysts should possess at different levels.

This guide was developed with the input and support of the Virtual Academy Advisory Council. Many thanks to the following practitioners for their guidance:

• Andrew Barbee, Director, Research and Development, Texas Department of Criminal Justice
• David Edwards, Director of Research, Planning & Process Improvement, Missouri Department of Corrections
• Sarah Fineran, Director of Research, Iowa Department of Corrections
• Erin Harbinson, Director, Criminal Justice Research Institute, The Judiciary – State of Hawai’i
• Nick Powell, Director of Strategic Planning & Analysis, Georgia Department of Community Supervision

Why Data and Analysis Are Vital to Effective Correctional Operations

Departments of corrections (DOCs) are large agencies that make important decisions every day, and many of those decisions rely on some form of data analysis. For example:

• Where to locate new programming that targets a specific need of incarcerated people
• Whether to focus on retaining staff, recruiting new staff, or both: is the DOC losing more people than it hires each month?
• Whether a policy change (such as new body scanners or K9’s for drug interdiction) results in safer facilities with less violence, fewer critical incidents, or fewer disciplinary actions.

Sometimes in large systems, leaders or staff within individual divisions, offices, or prison facilities realize the importance of these kinds of questions and engage in their own data collection and analysis, often doing data collection and entry by hand. This kind of data analysis, combined with the operational wisdom and experience of systems operators, can be fruitful. But system operators struggle to validate and replicate these analyses because they are done in silos, often without documented processes. Different parts of the bureaucracy then don’t learn from one another, and operational insights cannot be quickly repeated after a few months or replicated by other parts of the system. Ideally, these kinds of activities—called business intelligence in the corporate world—should take place either directly in a research and analysis office or with the assistance of corrections analysts so they can be done in a replicable way.

How to Structure a Research and Analysis Office

Research and analysis offices at DOCs vary widely in size, how they are used by their respective DOC, and even how they and their staff are named (this guide uses “research and analysis office,” “corrections analysts,” and “research directors” for clarity). Some DOCs have no specific research and analysis office and rely on one or two people to access and manage data if the agency needs it. Other states have significantly larger offices with senior staff who specialize in more complex analyses. Some DOCs provide their data to external agencies (such as sentencing councils or statistical analysis centers) to be analyzed.

In general, there are two main ways a DOC may structure a research and analysis office:

• Centralized, with a director
• Decentralized, with an analyst(s) “housed” in major divisions within the DOC

They may be named as follows:

• Research and Analysis
• Planning and Analysis Division
• Quality Improvement Unit

When making this decision, DOC directors must balance the following:

• The office’s ability to be operationally relevant. Often, research and analysis offices can become siloed operations that do not interact with staff who have field responsibilities and miss the opportunity to inform their work and support day-to-day operational decision-making with data-informed products.
• Staff perception of the mission of the office. Both the structure and the name of the office can influence what staff perceive to be the mission and whether they engage with the office and see it as a resource.
• The research and analysis office’s ability to provide quality analysis and develop the data skills of personnel. Decentralized or under-resourced structures might struggle to provide analysts with mentorship and training, as analyst supervisors under this model may not be fluent in research and analytics techniques.

With any structure, a high-functioning research and analysis office must have good relationships with executive- and mid-level operational staff, provide them with trusted analysis and information, and be included in conversations about strategy and pivotal, new initiatives.

Supporting a Research and Analysis Office

Research directors, like other internal leaders, often find themselves in the position of “making the case” for their offices, staff, and budgets. By far, the best case that can be made for a research and analysis office is when the agency executive team uses the office to help them solve their most pressing problems. Research offices should provide data that helps in a crisis (for example, gathering analyses to show whether the current crisis is unprecedented given the DOC’s history and trajectory) or longer-term data that helps protect strategic priorities (for example, a program evaluation of a marquee program that points to its public safety value). An office that provides operationally relevant data; decent business intelligence; and quality, longer-term reports will make its own case.

In addition to making the case for investments, research directors must do what they can to support corrections analysts. To counter discrepancies in pay and decrease turnover, state agencies can offer opportunities for professional growth and development such as attending conferences, obtaining certifications, and offering tuition reimbursement. Annually, DOCs can allow employees in the research and analysis office to attend or present at one conference to learn about current best practices and innovations in the field. In addition, a small budget can be allocated for research and data analysis certifications or continuing education courses (for example, $1,000, with a 1-year commitment of employment for individuals that receive this benefit). Further, DOCs can offer tuition reimbursement (in amounts that make sense for the budget) and require a 2-year commitment of employment to individuals that receive this benefit.

How to Hire Entry-Level Corrections Analysts

Corrections environments face well-documented recruiting challenges, and corrections research and analysis offices are not immune to these issues. Research and analysis offices in corrections agencies cannot typically pay market wages for analysts, and they often are overlooked by recent graduates with strong research and data analysis backgrounds from universities and colleges. When hiring for entry-level research and analysis positions, leaders usually have two options: (1) post a job description with explicit quantitative skills required, or (2) post a job description with minimal quantitative skills and train on the job.

In interviews with corrections research directors and corrections leaders, CSG Justice Center staff found that most DOCs had more success with the second strategy. They reported that because state government pay does not typically match the market pay for research and analysis positions, people with in-demand quantitative qualifications/backgrounds typically stay for one to two years, and then depart. This dynamic led to a preference for relaxing quantitative requirements and instead training entry-level candidates on the job, which led to longer staff tenures within the department. Hiring and training on the job meant that research directors could select candidates who wanted to build a career and were bought in to the mission of the department.

Here is a list of skills and tools that research directors should expect of entry-level corrections analysts. Please note that data management and analysis tools are constantly changing and being updated, and analysts can also learn them on the job. Therefore, this list does not mention specific software, as research directors should focus hiring decisions on skills, not tools.

Entry-Level Competencies and Specific Skills

• Strong communication and interpersonal skills
• Report writing
• Dedication to career growth within a DOC.
• Some data entry/collection experience (preferred)
• Some data management experience (preferred)
• Some data cleaning experience (preferred)
• Familiarity with statistical methods; ability to run summary statistics on datasets, interpret, and communicate them (preferred)

Entry-Level Competencies: Skills to Attain by Year 2

• Knowledge of the criminal justice system
• Ability to participate in quality assurance checks
• Experience with data management, cleaning, and manipulation
• Understanding of how to standardize routine data requests via reproducible processes
• Familiarity with correctional data
• Ability to work across multiple projects and ad-hoc requests simultaneously
• Ability to handle individual/case-level personally identifiable information securely
• Ability to produce data visualizations (via reports and dashboards) using software to support stakeholder requirements
• Ability to implement processes that improve and lead to greater data quality
• Ability to present analyses to a wide array of stakeholders and solicit feedback¹
• Ability to use data visualization best practices²

Keep the following points in mind when interviewing for entry-level corrections analysts who have quantitative skills:

1. Screen for candidates with quantitative skills who are interested in a long-term career within a state agency.
2. Require a slide presentation on past projects where the candidate played a role in data analysis—or anything they’ve done that was data-related. (Requiring someone to present their own work will tell you a lot about how much data analysis they’ve done, how they think about analysis projects, and their skill in relaying results and takeaways from analysis.)

Keep the following points in mind when interviewing for entry-level corrections analysts without demonstrated quantitative experience (internal or external candidates):

1. Screen for initial quantitative reasoning skills, but not experience in using quantitative analytic techniques.
2. Have a quantitative or numbers-related test for entry-level analysts but keep it simple.
3. Ask internal candidates about their career goals to determine if they want to do this work long term, and what professional development goals they would pursue.

How to Conduct Targeted Hiring for Higher-Level Corrections Analysts

Data and analytics is a field that evolves; recent graduates are often familiar with tools that more seasoned analysts are not, and new software, tools, and expectations are constantly advancing. Leaders will sometimes need to hire candidates who have experience with particular types of data analysis (such as machine learning) or who have management experience and broader technical expertise. In this case, screen candidates carefully and use probationary periods when bringing in new staff. When evaluating which higher-level skills to bring into the research office, make sure to ask people who have been trained most recently in the field what new tools are becoming relevant and how they might make the work of the office easier.

Higher-Level Competencies and Skills

• Some past data entry/collection experience
• 3+ years of experience in data management, cleaning, and manipulation
• 3+ years of experience in data analysis
• 3+ years of experience with data visualization
• Experience working across multiple, simultaneous complex projects
• 3+ years of experience with data linking or complex data matching techniques
• Experience with interactive data visualization

Higher-Level Positions: Skills to Attain by Year 2

• Demonstrated ability to supervise and mentor junior staff
• Experience with reproducible research and quality assurance tools
• Experience using application programming interfaces (APIs)
• Ability to automate processes
• Experience developing data security protocols and writing data use agreements
• Experience managing multiple, simultaneous complex projects
• Experience working in cloud-based and centralized databases

Keep the following points in mind when interviewing for targeted, high-level corrections analysts:

1. Screen for the technical ability and skills you need most. Consider looping in personnel from across the state—analysts from the governor’s office or from a sister criminal justice agency, or even trusted research/academic partners—to help evaluate technical ability and skills.
2. Ask about leadership experience and lessons learned as a leader or mentor for more junior staff.
3. Ask about career goals and assess for long-term progression or interest in this role.
4. Have candidates walk through an analysis they performed in a few different ways or a few different times. Candidates should be able to discuss multiple analyses they have performed.
5. Require candidates to present on a past project where they were directly performing the job functions you wish to import.
6. Ask or provide written scenario questions to determine how applicants would respond to certain analytical situations, such as last-minute requests, requests that depend on data of low quality, etc.
7. Ask for technical references, call them before making a hiring decision, and be specific in those reference questions, such as asking whether the person performed the specific technical relevant to the job and at what level (i.e., initial producer, or as a reviewer).
8. Ask for references from people who worked for this person to assess leadership and managerial abilities.
9. Ask the question, “How do you ensure trust in data results, both through internal technical processes and in communication with end users/stakeholders?”

Appendix: Interview Questions

Below are interview questions that might be helpful in screening candidates for analyst roles.

Entry-level researchers or analysts:

• Tell us more about yourself and what draws you to this position and working at a department of corrections.
• Tell us about the most complex research or data analytics project you’ve worked on. What made it so complicated? What did you learn?

• What is your experience working on research/analytic teams?

• How do you effectively communicate data via digestible tables, charts, or conclusions for end users and stakeholders?
• What processes do you use to ensure data quality and accurate results?

Higher-level researchers or analysts (in addition to entry-level questions):

• How do you handle sensitive data?
• How do you deal with missing data when you’re working on a project?
• In the past, how have you assessed a team’s data, analysis, or research capacity to develop a plan for improving operations?
• In the past, how have you handled lack of enthusiasm to adopt a proposal for improving or developing products that encourage quality assurance, such as reproducible research, automation, etc.?
• How do you approach giving critical feedback to team members?
• How do you approach mentoring people who are learning new programming and/or analytic skills?
• Tell us about a challenge you experienced when requesting data from partner agencies or organizations that adversely affected research project timelines. How did you successfully mitigate these issues and direct data sharing?
• Tell us about a time when a research project you were managing went off the rails and how you got it back on track.
• What is your dream project?

This project was supported by Grant No. 15PBJA-22-GK-01570-JRIX awarded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance. The Bureau of Justice Assistance is a component of the Office of Justice Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the Office for Victims of Crime, and Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking. Points of view or opinions in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Endnotes

1. Leaders that CSG Justice Center staff spoke to for this guide said this is aspirational for someone with two years of experience in corrections analysis and expected for someone with three years of experience.
2. See above.