Author: sdana88

This experience has been so many things for me in so many different ways, but in this post I will attempt to convey as best I can some of my main takeaways from the summer. This internship has opened my eyes in ways I could have imagined, but never expected.

Working with Restore Justice was my first formal experience with an internship in an established organization. The biggest thing that struck me right away was the passion and pride that these individuals had for the work that they do. Criminal justice reform is not a very popular public issue, especially in Illinois. The Illinois Department of Corrections is notoriously non-compliant and disorganized, and does not take kindly to groups that want to hold it accountable. Additionally, the population group that we work with is one that historically has been brushed under the rug. Because of the stigma attached to individuals who are incarcerated, coupled with the demographics of incarcerated persons leaning more towards people of color and people of lower socio-economic status, it is very easy for the public to be unsympathetic. Many think that these people have given up their chance to be treated with dignity and respect, and that they made the choice to become marked as a criminal and thus don’t deserve sympathy.

It is also very easy for people to choose to ignore the violations of rights that occur in prisons, both before, during, and after sentencing and incarceration. Simply put, people don’t care if it doesn’t affect them. This allows a great majority of individuals to turn a blind eye to what is happening, and the conceptualization of prisons as punitive instead of rehabilitative further drives this lack of empathy that the public expresses. Because of this, there is very limited opportunity to get enough public traction as well as legislative support to pass the policies that we want to see passed.

Against these odds and many more, the people at Restore Justice continue to see hope. They have helped me learn to celebrate any victory, no matter how small, because they see the bigger picture. They have also helped me understand the importance of narrowing focus in passing policy, but also in any work around social justice. Time and time again, I have heard my coworkers express the sentiment that, although they want to help everyone right now, they understand that it is more important to fight one step at a time, and that doing anything for even one person makes a world of a difference.

I am incredibly grateful to have been introduced to this community of people, and have met some truly incredible individuals. Being able to speak with men that have been incarcerated, are currently incarcerated, and family members of those men has been eye-opening and humbling. The hope that they retain in the face of being tossed aside by society and the passion they have for helping others that have been in their situation is astounding. It has made me a better person, helped me to see that there is a good in all of us, and that nobody should be defined by the worst mistake they have made.

I have made some incredibly meaningful connections and had truly insightful conversations. I have appreciated this experience in many ways, but most of all for the opportunity it has provided me to form my own understanding of this complex issue and all the players involved. Growing up with a father who works for the Bureau of Prisons in the federal system has given me one kind of narrative about the criminal justice system in the United States, and that narrative is extremely complicated in and of itself. But this internship experience has given me another narrative and opened up even more avenues and possible belief systems for me. I have been able to take each piece of information I have gathered and formulate my own thoughts and opinions on this incredibly complex issue.

Although I still have questions to explore and situations to unpack, this internship experience has given me clarity on one important idea: we are all people, and no matter what choices we make, we all have the potential to see the good in each other. We are all humans and we all deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. That’s the bottom line. Thank you to Restore Justice Illinois for giving me this opportunity, and more importantly, for fostering relationships that I will take with me the rest of my life.

As I transition out of college and into the brave new world of 9 to 5 workdays, I am consistently relying on the lessons I’ve learned in the field and finding ways to apply them to the nonprofit sector. At Brandeis, I am a member of the women’s soccer program, and have been for four years now. I’m also interning at a Chicago-based organization called Restore Justice (RJ), a criminal justice reform policy institution. While these institutions seem entirely different, they’re actually quite similar in the sense that they are rooted in the fundamental values of teamwork and coalition building. Here at RJ, we treat lobbying like sport. You have rules, teams, strategy, and all the action happens within a season or “legislative session.”

The summer for us is our offseason. This is an opportunity for us to regroup and prepare for the upcoming legislative session, when we get the chance to work on pushing our bills to hopefully become law. We meet with our lobbyists, do research, and try to write and rewrite language that we will then bring to members of the Illinois State Legislature to hopefully find a sponsor to push the bill through.

We are also working on finding more donors through fundraising to help fund our expansion and give us more opportunities to do the work that everyone in the small office wants to do. The summer session is treated very much like my offseason is for soccer in that it is seen as an opportunity to get better, stronger, faster. We aren’t put under the pressure of everything having to happen right now, and we have the opportunity to shop things, work on new techniques, or completely scrap something that isn’t working. We build on what we learned last season and work to take those lessons into our next season when the legislature comes back into session.

Another big thing that I have experienced is the very necessary job of understanding your own strengths and weaknesses. Brandeis soccer prides itself on having the mindset that every single player was brought here for a reason, and has something to contribute to the team. When we succeed, it is because of everyone’s efforts, and when we fail, it is on everyone to look at what they need to do better next time to help the team. Restore Justice thinks the same way. We wouldn’t be able to have the successes we’ve had if it weren’t for everyone in the office, and in times that we have failed, everyone has the chance to do better and play a part in the successes in the future.

Most importantly, it is vital that we recognize our own strengths and weaknesses. We all know that different individuals in this office have experiences in different ways, and we try as much as possible to play on those strengths, but also to get out of someone else’s way if we know a certain area is not our strongest. Understanding what you bring to the table and when you might do better to sit back and listen is key to having a team that works in harmony. I have always known that on the field, but it is a very important experience to be able to learn it off the field and in the workplace as well.

The Restore Justice Foundation is a nonprofit based in Chicago that works to promote criminal justice reform within the Illinois Department of Corrections. I found this organization through my mentor that I was connected with through the Brandeis Athletics Mentorship Program. After doing research on the organization, I decided that its mission was something that I am passionate about and I want to pursue further. The Foundation is committed to ending inhumane and unconstitutional practices in all facets of the criminal justice system, working on issues from sentencing reform to prison conditions to re-entry policy. The organization hosts events in the community such as advocacy trainings, prison visits, and lobbying days at the state legislature. It also meets with legislators in session and works on getting bills passed into law in order to help reform the criminal justice system in Illinois.

Their most recent accomplishment was getting HB531 passed in the last session. That bill, which is now law in Illinois, outlawed juvenile life sentences without the possibility of parole, which had been the case since 1978. HB531, which is now Public Act 100-1182, allows individuals seeking review the right to an attorney and the Prisoner Review Board. This bill had been worked on by Restore Justice for the past six years, and was passed right as I began working for the organization.

Restore Justice Illinois does most of its policy work while the state legislature is in session, so while the summer is not necessarily pushing policy work, it is a time for the organization to do important work in preparing for the issues we want to push during the next session. One of my biggest jobs for the summer is to work on restructuring our website. I am working with our new communications hire on restructuring the website, as well as creating new content for it. Our hope is to be able to create more resources for the public to be able to come to our site and learn about the background of the issues we have chosen to pursue as well as more about the structure of the Illinois prison system. I want to bring the skills I have learned at school in terms of research, writing academic work, and my passion for these issues to help the organization create a space for the public to learn about the fight we are engaging in, and hopefully draw support (both in sentiment and in monetary donations) to keep doing the work we are doing and to be able to expand our reach.

I am one of three interns we have working currently. I started at almost exactly the same time as Wendell Robinson, who is at the organization doing a 14-week apprenticeship in order to figure out if he wants to pursue this field as a career. His focus is on fundraising and financial support for the organization. As a nonprofit, we rely on donors to help us have the resources for the work that we do. The picture is of him and I and was featured in the monthly newsletter for the organization. Overall, I love the organization and the people I am working with and I am excited to learn and grow in my skillset and my activism over the rest of the summer.