CCJ Alum Melissa Kuziak Lives Out Passion for Helping Others in Victim Service Unit at St. Louis Circuit Attorney Office
Saint Louis University Master of Arts in Criminology and Criminal Justice alumni Melissa Kuziak has always been drawn to and fascinated with the criminal justice system and its intersection with social work.
“I wanted to work with people but also be in the criminal justice system,” Kuziak said. “The criminal justice system fascinates me; I like law and the process of it.”
Kuziak (MACCJ ’18) currently works as a Felony Crimes Advocate Caseworker within the Victim Service Unit at the St. Louis Circuit Attorney Office, the largest prosecution-based victim services unit in Missouri. Through her position, she is living out her passion as she provides support to victims as an initial contact person to connect them with services and resources in the community.
Kuziak said she values being able to be a voice for people that might not know how to be a voice for themselves, noting that the criminal justice system can be "very complex."
Day-to-day tasks vary with the number of cases needing outreach that day, warrants issued, and hearings scheduled. Most of her time is spent working directly with the prosecutors and victims related to cases that are assigned to her based on crime types.
In addition, she has a separate caseload assigned to her which focuses on special victims, incidents where individuals in the field are injured in the line of duty.
The time Kuziak spent at the MACCJ program at SLU gave her the supportive community that she needed to be able to dive deeper into the intersection of criminal justice and social work and provided the unique opportunity to complete an internship she was passionate about.
Kuziak completed her internship with the Central West End–Neighborhood Security Initiative (CWE-NSI), working with victims and the community at large.
“With criminal justice being in the School of Social Work, it really helps to show how important social work and criminal justice are together, and why you should use them together. It’s unique how SLU does that - which is one of the reasons that drew me to the University.”
As Kuziak develops her career, she sees her career transforming into a Service Supervisor role, with similar responsibilities to the current position she holds.
For now, she is taking every opportunity and interaction as experience under her belt, pointing out that the criminal justice field is huge and she is only one small sliver of it.
College for Public Health and Social Justice
The Saint Louis University College for Public Health and Social Justice is the only academic unit of its kind, studying social, environmental and physical influences that together determine the health and well-being of people and communities. It also is the only accredited school or college of public health among nearly 250 Catholic institutions of higher education in the United States.
Guided by a mission of social justice and focus on finding innovative and collaborative solutions for complex health problems, the College offers nationally recognized programs in public health, social work, health administration, applied behavior analysis, and criminology and criminal justice.