Montana Innocence Project, Missoula, MT
I developed an interest in criminal justice reform during my last few years of high school. Once at Williams, I acted on this interest by taking courses specifically chosen for their focus on the justice system. This included an inside/outside class at the Berkshire County House of Corrections. This summer I was an intern at the Montana Innocence Project (MTIP), the state and local affiliate of the national Innocence Project, a legal and criminal justice reform non-profit founded originally to exonerate falsely incarcerated persons. MTIP has since expanded to include policy work, re-entry services, and other criminal justice reform initiatives. I worked mostly in the policy and reform branches of MTIP.
MTIP has a small legal and policy staff, making me their only non-legal intern for the summer. The executive director, Frank Knaack, was new to the Montana office and therefore had not worked with any interns before me. These two factors allowed me to work with the directors and cater the internship to my interests and strengths. I had two umbrella projects that I worked on intermittently over the duration of the internship. The first was a database including information about the joint interim judicial committee. The Montana legislature meets once every two years, and having just ended the 2019 session, the MTIP is preparing to work with the interim judicial committee until the 2021 legislative session.
The database that I worked on was composed of both personal and district information for each of the committee members. Personal information included past committee experience, electoral experience, party affiliation, religious affiliation, and faith leaders. The director of MTIP explained that, especially in an ideologically conservative leaning state such as Montana, they found reaching out to specific legislature’s faith leaders or other spiritually influential community members important particularly given the nature of their work—issues surrounding criminal justice reform can often be understood as moral issues. The district side of the database comprised of various statistics—such as demographics, important industries, and large employers—and public relations—local justice reporters and media, universities and friendly professors, activist and allied groups in the area.
The second ongoing project of my internship was a second database of re-entry services in the five largest cities in Montana: Billings, Missoula, Great Falls, Bozeman, and Butte. MTIP is slowly beginning to create a re-entry network for individuals who have completed Department of Corrections supervision. I researched different social services and allied groups in each of these cities, creating a database of each service’s contact information and relevance to the re-entry program. With this information all in one place, MTIP will now move forward on establishing a re-entry coalition across Montana.
The work that I was most excited about doing, and which I had the greatest amount of discretion, was with the various research projects that MTIP asked me to complete. The first research project I did concerned former Montana forensic examiner Thomas Bennett, writing multi-page memos on his past inadequacies as examiner in other states and his effect on casework in Montana. The growing field of forensics is a focus for MTIP and the broader Innocence Project, both how to apply it as a tool to prove innocence but also understanding its shortcomings. Along similar lines, I researched several scandals in the state crime lab and evidence lockers that have come to fruition in recent years. Montana has an ongoing meth and burgeoning opioid epidemic. Several employees in the past five years have been caught stealing meth and opioids from the lab and lockers, affecting hundreds of cases. Further investigation found inadequate staffing at forensic facilities. The MTIP director asked me to research the steps that the MT DOJ had taken to follow up on each affected case and the facility deficiencies.
Additionally, I worked on a research memo concerning how law enforcement in Montana lose their certification, a complicated process that involved reading a lot of Montana code and state law. The last big project I worked on was a policy memo regarding ConWeb, an online service provided by the Montana DOJ that allows anyone to look up information about everyone who is under DOJ supervision. MTIP has launched a campaign to remove individuals from ConWeb immediately after they complete DOJ supervision, unlike the current three-year waiting period.
Working at MTIP for the summer taught me the importance of understanding the underlying bureaucracy that accompanies more newsworthy political decisions. I also gained a greater comprehension of the importance of local government. Before working at MTIP, my idea of criminal justice reform was shaped by national stories and big victories. However, I learned that the small projects and initiatives that make up day-to-day work are often overlooked and can have a huge impact on affected groups.
MTIP is unique in that it is so small that you can see your exact work impact the community and other individuals. Working as an intern at MTIP is relevant to the kind of job I would want and gave me important experiences and exposure to the actual realities of a criminal justice non-profit. MTIP directly impacts underrepresented groups in an underrepresented region, making it extremely impactful and important to the people it serves.
My work at MTIP is also relevant to my remaining three years at Williams. I plan to continue to take classes that highlight the American criminal justice system, this time understanding them from the unique perspective of having worked for MTIP. The exposure I got this summer will also impact how I approach other courses that discuss similar issues, such as political science, philosophy, or economics classes. As of right now, I am already thinking about applying to work at a public defender’s office next summer, an idea born of my time at MTIP.
My time with MTIP grew my understanding of community involvement and the importance of local organizations willing to fight for local causes (in Montana, the whole state is local). I would like to thank the Class of 1972 and the ’68 Center for Career Exploration for allowing me to spend the summer connecting and giving back to my community, while also challenging me intellectually in a field that I am passionate about, something that I have struggled to find.