Week Four:
What challenges and/or difficulties have you encountered and how did you go about resolving them? Speak to a specific challenge you have encountered and some of the ways that you tackled the problem.

There haven't been specific challenges that I've encountered with my day to day work, but related to the content of my work, it has been extremely enlightening to fill in my knowledge gaps on the US criminal justice system. It's hard to learn all the ins and outs of it in two months, so I have tried to read books/articles on re-entry and court-related matters. Reading has been helpful and I've immediately learned a lot about the challenges of prison re-entry and the impact of judging on sentencing. I've also reached out to others that work here to learn about specific topics, which has helped a lot—talking to them has made it easier to digest the books/articles. 

Week Five:

What new skills and/or knowledge have you gained from your summer experience? Have you met anyone who has been instrumental in shaping/helping you conduct your project? Briefly, how has this person impacted you? What have you learned about leadership from this individual, and how might it influence your actions, work, and self in the future?

I've learned a lot about criminal justice and the many actors involved, including the government, nonprofits, researchers, and more. My supervisor connected me with the Publisher of the Marshall Project, who I interviewed for WKCR 89.9FM. I have also been connected to other organizations in New York in the criminal justice space; I have been looking into tutoring for Petey Greene, a non-profit that helps incarcerated individuals. Though these are external actors/activities to my work, they are helping me learn about criminal justice and what it looks like in the real world.   

Hey Charlotte! The work you're doing sounds really interesting, especially the archival work with lawyers/paralegals. I imagine there are a lot of documents to go through but it seems like the client part of it adds a more public facing role. Excited to hear what you learn from your clients!

Hi all! I have been working at the Justice Lab for the past three weeks and I'm enjoying my time there. Apologies for the late posts, but here are some responses to the past three weeks!

Week One:

Q: If your project this summer differs from your project last summer, has last summer’s project influenced your project this year, and if so how?  If your project is different, what tools have you developed to help you work on this project?

A: My work this summer is different from my research last semester, which was an oral history on the Farmers' Protest. At the Justice Lab, I am working on the Square One project, which is a narrative change project on criminal justice reform in different states. For that, I have joined in on meetings on the work happening in Oklahoma, including some roundtables that brought together different stakeholders (business leaders, pastors, the mayor, etc) to discuss criminal justice reform. I have, however, continued my interest in oral history by editing transcripts of interviews conducted with roundtable participants. Overall, it's been exciting to learn about the different criminal justice initiatives at the Lab and helping wherever I can!

Week Two:

Q: If you are doing a leadership-in-action or community engagement project, how do you interact with community members, and what kind of conversations are you having? How do you connect with this community of people, and what common cause do you find?

A: I've really enjoyed having conversations about a wide variety of topics in criminal justice reform (CJR)—from solitary confinement, the Rikers prison, narrative change, and more—with people at the Lab and local leaders in Oklahoma. The common cause that binds everyone is a desire to reform the criminal justice system to make it more humane and less discriminatory. Becoming more involved in these conversations has been extremely educational for me because I am learning the nuances of the different parts of the criminal justice system. It has also sparked an interest in doing my own set of interviews with local re-entry organizations in New York for the radio station, merging my passion for radio with my interest in carceral reform. 

Week Three:

Q: What does a typical day look like this summer? Aside from a narrative description, upload a photo, video and/or other media submission!

A: I typically work in the office from 9am-5pm, though some stakeholder meetings in Oklahoma (held over Zoom) are in the evenings from 6-8pm. Each day, I compile a list of tasks I want to complete that day (cleaning transcripts, reading reports/books/research, etc) and get started. If there are any morning meetings with the Square One team, I look over the agenda and join them. Sometimes there are also meetings with members of the Lab throughout the day to learn about their projects that I attend. Other than that, for the rest of the day, I continue completing whichever tasks I have and update my team to continue our workflow. We also go on field trips sometimes! I have attached a photo of our group after attending a re-entry simulation at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, which was extremely educational and valuable. We gained a better understanding of prisoners who are re-entering society and were placed in a simulation, which included doing tasks like visiting our probation officers, paying for transportation (we only had 3 public transport tickets), looking for employment, finding a place to sleep, etc. I didn't really understand how hard it is to re-enter society with no help until after physically completing the simulation.  Though we look excited in the photo, it was quite sad to realize these challenges and hear from formerly incarcerated individuals on their experiences re-entering society after prison.

Photo link: https://photos.app.goo.gl/Tyeci1j9kjZEDE6m9