Reflection on the Inside-Out Class // Issues // Scholastic // University of Notre Dame

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When I first entered the prison, I was nervous, no doubt, but I also felt guilty for feeling nervous, especially since I had willingly gone to the Westville Correctional Facility to take classes.

In the fall of 2023, I enrolled in Professor Pam Butler’s course, “Rethinking Crime and Justice: Explorations from the Inside Out.” The three-credit Center for Social Concerns (CSC) course – combined with American studies, Africana studies, gender studies and poverty studies, among others – was one I wanted to take ever since I heard about the opportunity to take courses within education . from a prison in my freshman year at Notre Dame.

“Rethinking Crime and Justice” is part of the international Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program, where approximately twelve internal students (people who are incarcerated) and twelve external students (students at the host university) come together to study issues related to crime and justice. Since 2012, Inside Out courses have been offered at Notre Dame through the CSC, and the courses are taught at the Westville Correctional Facility, a state-run men’s prison approximately 45 minutes from campus.

Each semester there are different variations on the content of the Inside Out course offered at the university; However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Notre Dame has discontinued its 2020-2021 course offerings in Westville.

When the course became available again and I had time available in my agenda, I immediately registered. After the program description/requirements, the application emphasizes: “This is not a service course. It is not an opportunity to help those in need. It’s not about mentoring, ministry, or building lasting friendships. Rather, this is an opportunity for you to learn and think about crime and justice together with people who have different experiences than you.”

When I entered the classroom as a sociology major, I was interested in crime as it relates to society, as well as the broader social consequences of mass incarceration. In the summer of 2023, I had the opportunity to work with formerly incarcerated people through Take Heart, Inc., a local nonprofit organization that aims to provide youth in South Bend with mentors who share their experiences. My work at Take Heart led me to write a dissertation in sociology examining the consequences of the school-to-prison pipeline. Motivated to understand the prison system on a deeper level, I signed up for the course in hopes of learning about the intersection between crime and education.

My peers all had different other reasons for wanting to take the class. Senior Kiera Votzmeyer was inspired by her career goals to enroll. “I plan to attend law school next fall, and I can think of no better preparation for this (career) than understanding and getting to know the people whose lives have been most directly affected by the law,” she said.

Isaac Bersten, a junior liberal studies major, said, “I wanted to step out of the abstract and learn from those who have actually experienced the system. I wanted to hear different perspectives and further develop my own by changing the setting. I didn’t know much about restorative justice and I wanted to learn more.”

Some of my classmates came to the course with more experience working with system-involved people. For example, senior Mollie McKone had previously volunteered at the prison in 2021.

“While visiting Westville, I saw a group of Notre Dame students standing in the security line for their Inside Out class. I knew then that I wanted to be part of that class before my time at Notre Dame was over. After taking the course in the spring of my freshman year, I was asked to be a TA for the fall class. It was such a great experience that I couldn’t pass up the second opportunity to go back,” said McKone.

While my sociological background gave me a general understanding of mass incarceration and a superficial understanding of how the criminal justice system works, this course gave me the opportunity to delve into these issues and gain insight on both an intellectual and emotional level.

Over the course of our semester, the indoor and outdoor students worked together in small groups with each member of the class. I learned bits and pieces about each person’s story – I learned about their families, their values, their hopes, their dreams, their fears, and I shared my own. We celebrated Notre Dame football victories, lamented lost backyard basketball games, and asked each other questions about what brings us joy.

Although we were limited to the walls of our classroom and the few hours each week that we could interact with each other, our relationships and the intellectual community of our class blossomed. “Some of the most memorable (moments) are the little exchanges and laughs as we transition from one activity/discussion to the next. I never expected to see such a big smile in such a dark place, and I believe with all my heart that these flashes of laughter and joy are a testament to the strong bonds we have forged with each other,” said Votzmeyer.

Bersten similarly struggled to pinpoint just one specific moment that left a lasting impact. However, he noted how moments, as Votzymeyer mentioned, allowed him to develop a greater sense of solidarity, rooted in the shared understanding of the criminal justice system as it now stands to separate people from their communities and their families.

“(The class) further taught me how complicated and intertwined the social and legal relationships we all have are, and how difficult changing the system can be. It reminded me of the human cost of our collective inability to achieve justice in our society and how similar we all are, despite the different identities that society projects onto us,” Bersten said.

Our last lesson was in stark contrast to our first. First, I cried uncontrollably as I tried to emotionally prepare to cut ties with this group of people I had grown to care for so deeply. Seeing the growth that was taking place, both in myself and in my colleagues inside and outside, it became clear to me how much precious life, excitement, passion and curiosity there is in Westville as these men are imprisoned and isolated from the world. My outside classmates and I shared in the vans on our way to and from class that we wished our on-campus classes were more like our Westville course because the perspectives the inside students shared were so thoughtful and provocative. We longed for relationships in our “normal” lives that were as intellectually stimulating as the relationships we formed with each other in the classroom.

The class is not designed to “build lasting friendships,” but the opportunity to critically examine crime and justice alongside people from whom we are separated has illuminated for me on a profound level how the system works to separate people to hold. “The criminal justice system, and the stories we tell about it, have constructed an entire network of physical, structural, geographic and social boundaries between (the external students) and (their) internal peers, whose lives are more directly and clearly affected by the criminal justice system . Our class argues that thinking together across these boundaries is a necessary part of changing that system and its associated narratives around crime and justice,” said Professor Pam Butler.

The current criminal justice system impacts people, but as Bersten said, criminal justice policy courses often remain abstract and exclude the very people most directly affected by the criminal justice policies we should be learning about. This course was powerful and challenging because it asked us to go beyond what we learned on campus and discuss our thoughts and responses to research and scholarly writings on crime and justice with people who may have very different opinions and experiences on the issue to have.

McKone articulates how academic rigor based on personal connection enabled intellectual conversations that far exceeded her expectations. “Reimagining a world without prisons forced me to reevaluate my beliefs and understanding of justice, responsibility and accountability. Inside Out forced me to think critically and imaginatively about opportunities for building safe and healthy communities. This experience gave me the opportunity to learn from and truly listen to the experiences of justice-affected individuals,” said McKone.

Votzmeyer shared a similar perspective: “It is by far the best class I have ever taken at Notre Dame. In the campus classroom, it’s easy to become super meta and abstract in our thinking, overlooking the very people who are influenced or may have experience with the issues we’re talking about. Their perspectives and thoughts, rooted in life experience, have proven invaluable in learning not only key concepts related to the criminal justice system and restorative justice, but, perhaps more importantly, how to relate to other people and build real connections across identity differences that can be felt. insurmountable,” she said.

On our last day, one of my classmates gave a final speech that beautifully captured this concept: we were a group of people who were not supposed to “get along” or form a community. The students came from all over the world and had diverse economic backgrounds, races, ethnicities, sexualities, prison statuses and criminal histories. Nevertheless, we formed a classroom of equal peers who connected with each other as a way to engage more deeply in an examination of the criminal justice system.

Dr. Connie Snyder Mick, director of academic affairs at the Center for Social Concerns and director of the Poverty Studies Interdisciplinary Minor, currently teaches “Poverty & Justice: Inside Out.” Senior Gabbie Spontak shares her motivation for taking this course: “I wanted to take this course because it provides such a unique opportunity to learn alongside peers who would not normally have the opportunity to connect with each other! Most other opportunities to work with incarcerated people often do so through volunteerism, which means there are so many power dynamics involved. The Inside Out course can remove a lot of that power dynamic. I think the fact that we are equal really allows the students inside and outside to learn from each other and have more fruitful discussions and relationships.”

Spontak continued, “I think the most important way this course has contributed to my Notre Dame education has been by recognizing the role of life experiences in the classroom. I think in many of my other classes – even those that are more discussion-based – a lot of the content focuses solely on evidence/facts or on the text being discussed. The Inside Out course has encouraged me to think about how my lived experiences influence my views and how the lived experiences of others influence theirs. Not only has this enriched our course discussions, I think this is an essential life skill that the course has taught me.”

McKone offers parting words: “If you are able, I encourage everyone to take this course. I can truly say that this was the best class I took at Notre Dame and I will always remember my Inside and Outside classmates fondly. As one of our Inside classmates said on our last day, ‘This class made me feel human again.’”