The voices of people incarcerated in Illinois are rarely heard outside their institutions’ walls. Students in the Northwestern Prison Education Program (NPEP) are changing that.
This spring, spurred by the efforts of NPEP graduate Tony Triplett ’23, students worked closely with faculty advisers and writers to create the first issue of Northwestern Insider magazine. The publication, which is available online, provides an outlet for NPEP students to share their creative talents through personal essays, fiction and poems.
The magazine is the latest achievement for the program, which is committed to providing one of the nation’s best educations to incarcerated students in Illinois prisons, jails and youth centers. In November 2023 the original cohort of NPEP students at Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill, Ill., became the first incarcerated people in U.S. history to earn bachelor’s degrees from a top 10 university.
I’m right in your line of sight,
but are you looking at me
or through me?
— From “I’m Right Here,” a poem by NPEP student LeShun Smith
“NPEP is such a central part of my life,” says James Soto ’23, who graduated in November and was exonerated in December after serving 42 years for a wrongful conviction. “It has not only provided me with a high-quality education from a top-tier university but has also opened up many wonderful opportunities. But most of all, NPEP has offered me the transformative power of higher education, allowing me to make my dream a reality.” Soto is now applying to law school.
NPEP is funded by a grant from the Mellon Foundation, and support from alumni and other donors is growing, helping to expand and deepen NPEP’s core work.
For example, the program is purchasing laptops for students, helping participants continue their studies post-release and providing introductory college-level courses at the Cook County Jail in Chicago.
Meanwhile, the program continues to grow. After the first statewide applications for NPEP went out to facilities throughout Illinois in 2022, nearly 400 men applied for spots to join Stateville’s third and fourth cohorts in 2023. The program also has expanded to include students at Logan Correctional Center in Lincoln, Ill., who will become the first incarcerated women in the U.S. to graduate from a top 10 university.
The program’s success is due in large part to its director, Jennifer Lackey, who founded NPEP in 2018.
“The graduates of and students in NPEP radically expand what it means to be a member of the Northwestern community and, in so doing, play a vital role in reimagining and reshaping what is possible for all of us in spaces of higher learning,” she says. Lackey, who is the Wayne and Elizabeth Jones Professor of Philosophy at Northwestern, received the Daniel I. Linzer Award for Faculty Excellence in Diversity and Equity from the University’s Office of the Provost this year.
“I’m thankful for Professor Lackey,” Soto says. “Through her vision and tenacity, she has fulfilled the transformation and dreams of many others through NPEP.”
Learn more or support the Northwestern Prison Education Program.
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