Summer Internships

by Sequoia Patterson-Johnson, Summer Intern 2017

As a rising psychology major and summer intern at the Ohio Justice and Policy Center, a non-profit law firm, everyone tells me that psychology and criminal justice go hand-in-hand together. They tell me that I’m right where I need to be, because psychology is so important. It matters–the way the human brain works and functions to govern our daily actions and thought processes. And it’s these very actions and thought processes, or rather the interruption of such, that lead more and more women into the harsh hands of our criminal justice system each year. This makes sense, right? So why is it, then, that psychology is so under-addressed when considering the fate of those under the State’s clasp? Why are we so quick to write women off, ignoring their invisible wounds?

Since working on the Women’s Project with my amazing mentors, Sasha Naiman and Tiffanny Smith, these are the questions that riddle my mind each day. The OJPC Women’s Project takes a trauma-informed approach to providing pro bono legal assistance to survivors of human trafficking with criminal records, and to women serving long prison terms for crimes against their abusers. With this approach, the attorneys behind the Women’s Project take into account the fact that women’s histories of victimization and trauma are often directly linked to their criminal records. This being said, the psychological trauma resulting from such abuse causes many women to be far more vulnerable to being re-victimized by sex trafficking and severe domestic abuse.

Multiple empirical studies have been conducted that clearly demonstrate the links between childhood physical assault (CPA) and childhood sexual assault (CSA), and the development of post-traumatic stress disorder. Various psychological research has also demonstrated a direct link to PTSD from CPA and CSA that significantly increases one’s likelihood of becoming victim to both forms of abuse during adulthood. Studies have shown that experiencing physical and/or sexual abuse during childhood nearly doubles the probability of re-victimization to these same kinds of abuse in their adult life. This is because the resulting PTSD symptoms from earlier abuse minimizes one’s ability to recognize danger cues that sex traffickers and domestic abusers display early on (Risser et. al, 2006).

Psychological research also indicates that due to gender based violence (GBV), such as rape and intimate partner violence, women are more than twice as likely as men to develop PTSD (Silove et. al, 2017). Symptoms of PTSD, such as re-experiencing events of the trauma, avoidance of reminders of the trauma, and persistent hyperarousal result in heightened vulnerability. Persons with PTSD are also more likely to seek routes of escape from their symptoms, such as substance abuse or a sense of familial belonging. It is this exact vulnerability that sexual predators and domestic batterers prey on. Predators commonly offer drugs and false love as an escape tactic to their victims, which then becomes a means of control and coercion. Predatory abusers play on women’s invisible wounds to turn them into invisible victims.

When this happens, women become psychological slaves to their abusers, doing whatever necessary to stay in their abusers good graces and to keep themselves safe. Abusers often use physical abuse and chemical dependency to control and exploit their victims, often forcing them to continuously endure violations to their basic human rights. This can look like forced sexual abuse for the abuser’s profit (prostitution), drug trafficking, severe beatings, and even control over every aspect in one’s life, which is overwhelmingly common in cases of domestic violence. These forced actions often result in criminal charges and extensive criminal records that lead victims to incarceration and multiple barriers to healthy reentry into society.

As a system, we force women into lives of painful invisibility to acquire wounds that we do not care to see nor address, and we incriminate them due to the status of their victimization. It is this exact invisibility that OJPC and the Women’s Project aims to eradicate.

“Though I had heard so many great things about her beforehand, I was still unprepared for just how wonderful her spirit was…”

My interest in criminal justice began during my freshman year at the University of Florida when I first learned about the Innocence Project and cases involving wrongful convictions. I was horrified by the injustice of an innocent person serving time for a crime they did not commit and knew I wanted to help fight to change the policies that allowed this to happen.

Shortly before entering law school, however, I began to see that the problems with the justice system go far deeper than wrongful convictions. Mass incarceration, unfair sentencing laws, and steep barriers to reentry are all consequences of a severely broken system. I decided to spend my summer at OJPC because I wanted to help a different population of people affected by these issues than I had in the past: those that society had essentially cast aside because, unlike many exonerees, their criminal records did not come with proven claims of innocence.

Working at OJPC opened my eyes to just how many barriers people with criminal records face. So many people have already served time for their past mistakes, yet continue to be punished through criminal sanctions. What was even more jarring was seeing how stark the contrast often was between how an individual appeared to society on paper compared to who they were as a person. The clients who came in for help applying for CQEs were intelligent, kind, and thoughtful, with hopes and dreams like anyone else. Within a few minutes of talking with them it was clear they would excel if given the chance to obtain meaningful employment, yet as it stood their records prevented them from doing so.

In addition to returning citizens, my time at OJPC also helped to alter my view of incarcerated individuals. I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to meet Tyra Patterson, whose case initially interested me because it involved actual innocence. Though I had heard so many great things about her beforehand, I was still unprepared for just how wonderful her spirit was; I can honestly say she is the kindest, most selfless person I have had the privilege of meeting. I now believe that Tyra deserves to be freed not only because of her innocence, but also because of the tremendous amount she could contribute to society.

Overall, OJPC taught me that we must start to recognize the humanity of people who have been incarcerated or have a criminal record. These are not “felons” or “criminals”; they are daughters and sons, mothers and fathers, or quite simply people. While they may have made mistakes in the past, they also have hopes of providing for their families, living a comfortable life, or pursuing career goals, and deserve to be given that opportunity. Wherever I end up after law school, I know it will involve client-centered advocacy and that humanizing my clients will now be one of my top priorities.

Molly Bunke, Harvard Law School

“It’s easy to say these things as platitudes, but it becomes so much more real when these simple things are actively lived.”

Our group of interns consisted of law students, undergraduate students, and a freshly-graduated high school student. I am a second-year law student at Washington University in St. Louis. Since high school, I’ve lived in five different cities, changed jobs multiple times, and made plenty of decisions I would change. People change over time. A lot. I’d be aggravated if someone treated me as if I was the same person I was at eighteen. But that happens way too often in the justice system.

A client was referred to us. A police officer harassed the client over a charge that occurred nine years ago. The officer then communicated a misrepresentation of that charge to the client’s neighbors. Those neighbors, previously friendly, turned against him. The neighbor’s children yelled names at him when they saw him. To the neighbors, the client became someone else in less than a day. Even though nothing had really changed.

OJPC’s motto is “don’t write people off.” Our job as community members is to understand where our clients are and where they want to be. Our job as legal aid is to identify how to overcome the hurdles, barriers, and burdens our clients face. Our job as people is to treat our clients with dignity. When you focus on what someone did in the past, or who they used to be, you write off who they are now. It’s easy to say these things as platitudes, but it becomes so much more real when these simple things are actively lived.

Leaving here after the summer, I’m going to head back to St. Louis and then probably end up in a different city after that. My life is going to be changing and I want to be treated as who I am. My time here is a reminder to make sure to extend that approach to anyone I interact with. I want to remember that the human element exists in everyone and seek it out.

Dan Cull, Washington University School of Law

“The experiences and skills I gained at OJPC will be invaluable to the women and men I serve in the future.”

My name is Sherry Porter, and I am entering my 3L year at the University of Cincinnati College of Law. Before coming to law school, I worked as a Probation Officer for almost a decade. I saw firsthand just how unjust the criminal “justice” system really is. After spending many years working with clients involved in the legal system, I felt that I could make a bigger impact as an attorney. My interest in social justice issues and a desire to fight systemic inequalities drew me to this internship at the Ohio Justice & Policy Center (OJPC).

This summer I had the unique experience of working on the beginning stages of a brand new project at OJPC, ‘Women’s Domestic Violence Project.’ This project seeks release from prison for women convicted of homicide related offenses that were a result of domestic violence. Although I participated only in the initial phase of the project, I know that it will have a positive impact on the lives of so many women. Because women are the fasting growing prison population in the U.S., projects designed to fight for their release are extremely important.

I hope to spend a long career in the law working to make positive changes in our legal system and working to aid those who find themselves involved in the court system. Too many people in our society are written off as criminals.  Prisoners are all but forgotten by the public and condemned for their mistakes. Many people do not consider the human rights of prisoners and often do not even acknowledge these rights.

Projects like the ‘Women’s Domestic Violence Project’ and public interest attorneys like those I had the pleasure of working with at OJPC remind me that there is hope and there are people willing to fight for incarcerated men and women. This internship confirmed my desire to work in criminal law. I have built my career on a desire to aid in social change and my ultimate career goal is to become an attorney who will perform social justice feminism and fight for the rights of women and other oppressed or marginalized groups. The experiences and skills I gained at OJPC will be invaluable to the women and men I serve in the future.

Sherry Porter, University of Cincinnati College of Law