HLS Beyond Presents: The Importance of Empirical Skills for Changing Policy

Arevik Avedian and Felicia Caten-Reines (JD ’25)

Registration Required.

Last year HLS Beyond and Professor Arevik Avedian brought you the session How to Read an Empirical Paper with the underlying motive of demonstrating just how important understanding data and empirical analysis can be in today’s legal profession. This fall join her and HLS student Felicia Caten-Raines (JD ’25) from the HLS Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program to hear the data-driven details behind the incredibly impactful report they co-authored with researchers from HLS, HMS, and Physicians for Human Rights entitled “Endless Nightmare”: Torture and Inhuman Treatment in Solitary Confinement in U.S. Immigration Detention. Based on litigated FOIA data on solitary confinement placements in US Immigration detention facilities from 2018 to 2023, their analysis uncovered an expansion of solitary confinement in U.S. immigration detention, despite calls for an end to this inhumane practice. In this session they will walk through various steps of empirical analysis, including data quality check and cleaning, best practices of creating and sharing replication data and code, and data analysis and visualization – all grounded in this incredible project that led to a now large-scale advocacy push to end solitary confinement in US detention centers supported by almost 200 organizations. Check out the report in advance. REGISTER HERE