WASHINGTON — During a college internship at the Orange County Public Defender's office, Rachel Rossi was sent to the local jail. She was given a simple instruction: Ask people who had recently been arrested what they need.
"'Do you need medication? Is your family OK? Are your kids OK?' In that role and seeing the racial disparities of people who are in the system, but also seeing just the humanity of the people, it sold me that this was where my passion, my fight would be," Rossi told The Times in an interview.
She went on to become a public defender in Los Angeles and help Congress write prison reform legislation that reduced mandatory minimum sentences, and later became the Justice Department's first coordinator on hate crimes.
