Cohort: 1
Where are you from:
South Side of Chicago.
What is your favorite field of study/topic?
Philosophy.
What is something you would like people to know about you as a student?
I enjoy the challenge. Not everything comes easy, but putting in the work and figuring things out makes the effort worth it.
What does being a part of NPEP mean to you?
Everything. Being incarcerated my whole life I haven’t had many opportunities to extend my knowledge. This program is a tether to reality. Being a student removes me from prison. I focus on my studies. I am no longer in prison — I’m at school.
What course has had the biggest impact on you and why?
Philosophy. Professor Lackey’s classes were mental battles. You couldn’t half-step. I learned how to think about things differently, from different angles. I was taught not only how to form thoughts, but also how to present and defend them.
What is your favorite book or article that you have read in your NPEP classes?
John Pfaff’s “Locked In.” Being in this system for three-and-a-half decades, I know that criminal justice as practiced in America is a joke. Pfaff’s book not only showed how, where, and why the system is broken; he had that research and data to prove it.
What assignment (paper, project, homework) have you found the most rewarding?
I have been enjoying the whole process of this program. If I had to pick one assignment, it would be the group assignment with our law class. I really believe our advocacy project can and will work, given the chance.