Students, Prisoners and a Nun: A unique book club meets in one of the largest prisons in the country

CHICAGO (AP) For college student Nana Ampofo, an unconventional book club at one of the nation’s largest prisons modified her profession ambitions.

Every week, the 22-year-old drives a van of her DePaul University peers to the Cook County Jail to speak about books with inmates, most recently with renowned activist Sister Helen Prejean. Ampofo is ready with thought-provoking inquiries to spark conversations in the Chicago jail about the latest books they’ve read together.

One rule of the club is obvious: talking about personal lives is inspired, but questions on why other members are in prison usually are not allowed.

“It’s part of dehumanizing people. You want people to tell you their own story and have their own autonomy,” Ampofo said. “When you go in with an open mind, you see how similar people are to you.”

The student-led volunteer program began a few years ago as an offshoot of a DePaul program that offered students and inmates for credit at a prison on the city’s southwest side. The book club, which a latest group joins each academic quarter, tackles books that personally appeal to the group’s members, who’re almost entirely black or Latino.

Associated Press journalists were allowed into the prison Monday to watch the current club’s final meeting to debate Prejean’s book “Dead Man Walking,” at which a Louisiana anti-death penalty activist made a special appearance. The book, which was also adapted into a film and an opera, tells the story of her experiences as a spiritual advisor to a pair of men on death row in the Eighties.

Seated in a circle in the prison’s window-filled chapel, 10 inmates in brown prison uniforms sat amongst 4 students and Prejean, who visits the Catholic University of Chicago yearly.

Ampofo, who advocated for Prejean’s visit, cried as she talked about how vital the group members and the discussions they’d were to her. Laughter erupted when Prejean told a vulgar joke involving folk characters from the Louisiana swamps. When inmate Steven Hayer discussed why many inmates return to prison, there was no shortage of vehement nods.

“Our society is not investing in solutions,” he said. “And when they come out, they will go back to what they knew.”

Book club members took the opportunity to ask Prejean questions, similar to the differences between the book and the movie and what it’s like to observe people die.

The 85-year-old nun was present at seven executions. Her archival papers are at DePaul, including notes for the script of the 1995 film starring Susan Sarandon.

After seeing her first execution, Prejean said she vomited, but stated that it was a privilege to be with people in their final moments.

“When you witness something, a fire starts burning in your heart, demanding justice, that we need to change this,” she said.

As a white woman who grew up in the South, Prejean said working in a prison opened her eyes to racism.

Most of the book club’s incarcerated members are black, reflecting the demographics of the prison that houses nearly 5,000 inmates. According to Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, about 70% of inmates participate in some type of educational program, similar to a book club.

However, college student participation sets the book club other than other activities.

“When you suddenly have outside students sitting next to you, you start to think about yourself differently,” Dart said. “It changes the mentality.”

Detainees are invited to participate in classes resulting from their interests, he added. He added that their internal behavior determines their ability to affix, not what they’re serving time for. Health issues are also taken into consideration.

There are as many as 40 people on the waiting list to affix the club in prison.

Jarvis Wright, who has been detained in Cook County for 2 years, said he’s a reader but has never been to a book club before. The 30-year-old reads at night when the prison is quiet. Other book club selections included “The Color of Law,” which delves into the issue of residential segregation.

“Even though we’re in jail waiting for our cases to go to trial, it gives us something positive to look forward to,” Wright said. “We’re not just here to waste time.”

Since 2012, DePaul has offered college classes through a nationwide program called Inside-Out Prison Exchange. Classes are held at each the Cook County Jail and the Stateville Correctional Center, a maximum-security men’s prison positioned about 40 miles from Chicago.

There are security guards present during the book club, but no one is in handcuffs.

Helen Damon-Moore, who oversees prison teaching programs at DePaul, says there has never been a security problem.

“Everyone is equal when they’re on the inside,” Damon-Moore said.

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Stanley Allen, a 36-year-old inmate, said he was interested in the club because of its connection to the university. He hopes to take part-time classes in the future. For him, the most surprising part of the club was meeting the students and Prejean.

“There are some really good people there,” he said.

Other book club members say the experience has brought them closer together.

“I feel like I’m talking to a bunch of my brothers,” Clark, a DePaul sophomore from Chicago, told the Group Seven. – The way you talk is so familiar. I feel like at home.”

Ampofo will return to prison at the end of the week, when a latest club specializing in black women’s writing begins. It’s a topic that particularly interests her as the American-born daughter of a Ghanaian immigrant mother.

Ampofo, the first in her family to graduate from highschool, plans to attend graduate school to pursue museum studies. He dreams of improving access to museums for inmates and their families.

“I want to take care of people,” she said. “And I found people I want to take care of.”