in their own words
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students learn and grow
Allowing students to work for OIP contributes to what makes this organization excellent. I sat and watched law students and interns work in an environment that further prepares each of them for what is to come in the next step of their lives: the real world. Every day, law students learn about stories proving how great the justice system is, the experience working within OIP gives them the opportunity to also see the faults of the system too. Jodi Shorr, the director of OIP, shared, "When I was in Law School, I worked at an Innocence Project. It opened my eyes; I had never been introduced to this side of criminal justice. The experience showed me what I wanted to do the rest of my life."
"The OIP really allowed me to further my understanding of what legal work actually entails. It's more than just case briefs like 1L year; it's following one's own ideas and creating relationships with the people involved so they become more than just names on a page."
-Greg Moredock (2011 Member of OIP & recipient of the Lois Rosenthal Award) |
reality of prison
Looking inside an inmate’s cell is what really opened my eyes to how terrible prison life is. After the guard unlocked it, a group of no more than five students could take a look inside of the cell. The limit was five because not even standing shoulder to shoulder, would a sixth person be able to fit. There was a toilet to my left that was less than a foot away from a tiny bed. I say bed, but in reality, it was a one-inch thick “mattress” pad resting on top of a wobbly metal frame. The dark, dingy room reeked of body odor and sweat and was intolerably cold. There was one small, barred- up window in the room that set so only the sky showed. I lived in a standard-sized college dorm room my freshman year and oftentimes when complaining, referred to it as the size of a shoebox; I lived in a luxurious master suite compared to the prison cell I was looking into. Think about being locked in a room such as the one just described for 20+ hours a day. Now think about having to live there for punishment of a crime you did not even commit.