Welcome to “Pericles in Practice,” our monthly Substack series exploring what community-engaged civic learning looks like on campuses and where it’s headed next. This article was co-written with Ann Frost, a Project Pericles Mini-Grantee and Associate Teaching Professor at the University of Washington.
For over a decade, I have facilitated the Law, Societies, and Justice (LSJ) Book Club in partnership with local correctional facilities. In one of our three current book clubs, eight University of Washington students enrolled in my LSJ Book Club course are participating alongside eight incarcerated men at the Washington State Monroe Correctional Complex. Each month, all members of this book club collectively choose a book to read and participate in a two-hour discussion. Alongside the book club, students attend biweekly on-campus meetings with me, where we discuss the criminal legal system and incarceration in Washington State and plan upcoming book club meetings.
The goal for my students is to learn about the experience of incarceration through direct engagement. LSJ Department students take many classes that teach them about the American criminal legal system, but the book club offers them an opportunity to expand their learning in an experiential context. With a Project Pericles Civic Engagement Mini-Grant, I introduced deliberative dialogue into the LSJ Book Club course, during which students engage in structured conversations about privilege, service, and power before entering the prison. While these discussions confront the reality that our presence may provide programming that would not otherwise exist, we crucially discuss our position of privilege, the importance of acknowledging that position, and leaving behind the feeling that we are superior to the incarcerated members, or providing them with some form of help they would not otherwise receive. Instead, I hope to foster in the students a recognition of our shared humanity and our position as equals with all members of the book club.
Because the class is immersive and experiential, the LSJ Book Club serves as a direct and effective bridge between classroom learning and the real-world impact on the individuals whom the United States criminal legal system charges, punishes, and convicts. The immersive nature of the class allows students to connect academic study with the lived realities of incarceration. While listening to formerly incarcerated people and professionals who work in the criminal legal system in classes on campus is useful, actually going into the prison and learning with currently incarcerated people creates a completely different level of engagement for the students. While the book club conversations center on the book we’ve read that month, discussions range over issues the men face during incarceration, thoughts about families and loved ones, and mundane topics that illustrate our common human experience.
Students’ experience in this class directly impacts their intellectual development and helps promote lifelong habits of informed and compassionate citizenship. Many students who participate in this class are inspired to pursue careers related to their book club work. Some may choose to go to law school, others to work within organizations seeking to reform the criminal legal system, and others to pursue policymaking. Even those who do not choose a related career will carry the compassion and knowledge gained through this endeavor. They will better understand the criminal legal system, related policy, and mechanisms for reform. Most importantly, they will understand how this system impacts the most vulnerable members of society. The incarcerated members of the book club have been underserved in every respect. During incarceration, they have access to very little programming, especially educational programming. During the pandemic, all programs inside the prison ceased and have been very slow to restart. The book club offers sustained intellectual engagement in a setting where such opportunities remain limited. In a space defined by walls and separation, the book club becomes a place where learning, dialogue, and human connection move freely across every boundary.
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Ann Frost is an Associate Teaching Professor at the University of Washington in Seattle, teaching classes about the American criminal legal system and incarceration, and bringing education to incarcerated people in the state.