“I was invited to speak to a class conducted every Wednesday by Northwestern Philosophy Professor Jennifer Lackey that is focused on values, and in particular the issue of mass incarceration.
“But this was no ordinary class. It was far from the Northwestern campus at Stateville Correctional Center in Joliet, and all 15 students had been sentenced to life in prison. Driving there in the rain, I wondered what I would say to them, and what they would be like. It turns out, I learned more in the nearly two hours I spent with these students than they learned from me.”