Three students reflect on their experiences in the course Justice in Our Lives:
Andrew – Outside Student
“Coming into this course, I did not have many expectations. I suppose I expected jumpsuits and general jail stereotypes, but besides that I didn’t have many conscious expectations. Although I didn’t have many thought-out expectations, I think I had unconscious expectations bred into me through media, society, and news. Seeing movies like “The Shawshank Redemption” and “Escape from Alcatraz” has created an image of what jails and prisons look like in my head. My view of prison was an image of white painted bars on cells lining a hallway. The images of jail that I have in my head were of well-lit cells, or perhaps dark cells, but my image of jail cells had windows.
The thing that most surprised me about the building itself was how sealed off it is to the outside world. An image that sticks in my mind from yesterday is coming down the long, well-lit hallway towards the area where the hallways split off into the different pods. I remember waiting for the machine doors of “D pod” to open, and seeing the darkness behind the thick glass. That darkness kind of represented despair for me. I didn’t expect such darkness, such isolation from the outside world. Buildings should have windows to let God’s creation in. It reminds me of hymn #1 in the blue hymnal, “walls and a roof, sheltering people, windows for light, an open door.” This building had neither windows for light, nor open doors, and its walls and roof were confining, not sheltering.”
Jenae – Outside Student
“…Along with guilt came a feeling of responsibility. One of the inside students looked at me yesterday and said, “what I want to know is what are you going to do with this experience. You’re here, and you’re talking to us and I can tell that you care, so what are you going to do? You could be the next prosecutor, the next judge, the next lawyer. Are you going to be?” I was shocked, but his words struck me and I felt called in that moment. I’ve been debating two potential career paths—ministry and law. But as much as I love the idea of law school, I’ve never really wanted to go into criminal law. Criminal law seems so messy, corrupt, so ethically compromising. Civil law seemed like the purer choice to me before—it’s powerful, it helps people, or at least it can, and I don’t have major reservations about how its system works. But this inside student’s question gives me pause.
I hope that as this class continues, I will gain further insight into the flaws in the criminal justice system and how I might be involved in addressing them….I’m afraid of my own potential for apathy. I don’t want the strong emotions I’m feeling this May Term to be temporary. I think that my gifts and interests are such that I really could pursue criminal justice—I just want to learn how the inside students would want me to do that.”
photo from the class last May
Drew – Inside Student
“…Even though I knew going in what the practices of the class would be, I didn’t know how devalued my thoughts and opinions had become. How empowering and good for one’s self-esteem it is to have someone attentively listen to you with a look that says, “what you have to say matters to me, and I actually came here to hear it.” Wow!!! ….I find myself experiencing gratitude for allowing me to recapture that aspect of humanity, an aspect that I really wasn’t aware that I had lost or that was affecting me in a negative way until it was returned to me, if only for a couple of hours. What I think matters to someone! Just saying it feels good. Just writing it feels good. And for that, I am extremely grateful.
In jail you don’t allow yourself to visit your emotional self very often because emotions are looked upon as a form of weakness so you don’t really process how your life/self is being affected on an emotional level. But because you asked me, I had to ask myself and being a man, locked up or not, we’re not in-tune with our emotions so I’m also grateful for you giving me the excuse to tap into them once again.”
