What It's Like to Intern with The U.S. Marshals Service

As a criminal justice student with the goal of working in federal law enforcement, it has been a privilege to intern at the United States Marshals Service in Washington, D.C.

This historic agency was founded in 1789 and holds the distinction as the oldest federal law enforcement agency in the country. Today, the Marshals Service is primarily responsible for the protection of the federal court system throughout the country. This involves protecting judges, jurors, and ensuring that the courts run smoothly each day. The Marshals also have a multitude of other functions including transporting prisoners to and from the courthouse, securing cell blocks, operating the Witness Protection Program, and conducting fugitive investigations (they arrest more fugitives on a yearly basis than any other agency). Through my internship, I have been exposed to these various aspects of the agency by shadowing Deputy U.S. Marshals throughout their day and assisting on various projects in each division.

As an intern representing the U.S. Marshals at the D.C Superior Court, I rotate through four different divisions including warrants, prisoner coordination, evictions and oversight.

In the warrants section, I have been involved in looking over closed arrest warrant cases. Once a person has been arrested on an active warrant by the Marshals Service, there is a decent amount of paperwork that must be added to their case file before it can be filed away. I was involved in reading over these case files and querying searches in the Marshals database on each fugitive to ensure that all the necessary paperwork was contained in the file.

In prisoner coordination and evictions (this function is only performed by Marshals in D.C), I have conducted extensive record management where I prioritize old case files, document the pertinent ones, and then coordinate them to be sent off to be archived.

The oversight division is primarily responsible for administrative functions in the district. Part of this involves hiring oversight, specifically regarding collateral duties that Marshals can apply for. These are in addition to their regular assigned duties and can include jobs such as firearms instructors, tactical training officer, fitness coordinator and threat investigator. I was involved in sifting through over seventy online applications and organizing them into an excel spreadsheet as well as a binder that detailed each Marshals qualifications ranging from relevant skills to the years of experience each one had. These documents were later sent off to supervisors to assist them in choosing Marshals for each position. I felt a great deal of pride knowing that the work I was doing would later assist supervisors in making their decisions. 

Another aspect that I love about my internship is that I can interact with Deputy U.S. Marshals and supervisors daily. As I rotate divisions, I am assigned a new supervisor and can work with new deputies who are experts in their respective division. This has allowed me to gain knowledge about the many missions that this agency serves.

The Marshals Service Internship program is also great at organizing trips to other agencies that we can attend almost on a weekly basis. I have been able to tour the DEA Academy in Quantico, Interpol, the Marshals tactical office in Springfield and hear from speakers from the FBI and U.S. Postal Inspectors. This has allowed me to gain a wide view on the work that various federal law enforcement agencies do and has opened me up to the many different careers within this field. Through these trips, I have also met other interns who work at the Headquarters Division and learned that there are many different offices you can work in as an intern. These include the Investigative Operations Division, Judicial Security Division, and Human Resources.

Each day at my internship, I have been able to experience something new. In law enforcement, no two days are ever the same. I highly urge any student who is truly interested in pursuing a career in this field to consider an internship in D.C. I believe D.C is the center of all law enforcement in the U.S., as there are over thirty different agencies with varying jurisdictions within the district. I have been able to learn more than I would ever have been able to in any other place in the country. Being able to intern in the nation’s capital at such a historic agency such as the Marshals Service has been an experience that I will never forget. 

About the Author

Salvatore is a student at the University of Massachusetts Lowell where he majors in Criminal Justice. He was a Fall 2019 intern at the United States Marshals Service in the D.C Superior Court Division.

More Content by Salvatore Florio Jr.