Maya Smith interns with the Criminal Justice and Employment Initiative

I was an intern with the Criminal Justice and Employment Initiative (CJEI). CJEI taught me about the restorative record and best training practices. The restorative record would allow formerly incarcerated persons by training Human Resources departments on the Fair Chance Act (FCA) and how to use fair background checks. The FCA encouraged employers to give people who were affected by the criminal justice system a fair chance of employment. Tim McNutt, who was my boss, myself, and the rest of the team worked on ways to ensure employers, as well as universities took this pledge. One of my last assignments while doing this internship was to write a bill for the restorative record. However, I posed the idea of writing an addendum or amendment to the FCA rather than a whole Bill. I believed this would be easier for the CJEI team to convince a Congress member to get behind. So, I learned how to craft an addendum.

In addition to crafting an addendum. I was able to attend many informative criminal justice and hiring reform webinars. I took notes on these meetings to keep the team informed and remind them of their goals for the week or month. Lastly, I believe the most important thing I learned to do during this internship was work with formerly incarcerated people on learning their rights, ensuring their RAP sheets were correct, and training them on how to use new technology to find employment and education. This helped them to really sell themselves to employers and school, but make sure they are being presented in their true light.

I truly enjoyed my time with CJEI. I was able to learn a lot about the criminal justice laws and meet a lot of people in the field I hope to be in. Tim was very easy and accommodating to work with. He didn’t just give me busy work to do, but actually gave work that was impactful for his lobbying and work with the ILR. I was also given the opportunity to work closely with Jodi Anderson. Jodi is an amazing person who also connected me with other professionals in the criminal justice field. I was able to learn more about the technology aspect of release from Jodi and what ways it could be simplified for formerly incarcerated persons. This would also help me with the work I do for CUPI and my applicants who are much like newborns with technology after release. I also liked the freedom to explore and do our own independent research on topics surrounding the restorative record. It was helpful to fully understand the work that CJEI did.

Labor and Employment Law and Human Resource Management are two courses that definitely deepened my understanding for this credit internship. Both classes gave me the foundation to thrive.

I gained a lot of career preparation from this internship. I learned how to craft legal documents and how to work better with teams. I also learned more about the criminal justice system as a whole.

I highly recommend this credit internship to any ILR student who has an interest in criminal justice reform, cannabis, or training. I think this internship would be better suited for people who have taken labor law and human resources. This means it would probably be suitable for sophomores and up. I also recommend having an advisor like Sam Nelson, who gives you the tools and different ideas to help you thrive during your internship.