A Unique Classroom

The high school in question is located behind the razor wire-topped fences of the sprawling Cook County Jail outside Chicago. The students are all young inmates, facing charges that range from drug and robbery offenses to rape and murder.
Having written extensively about the prison system and about the struggles ex-offenders face once they’re released back into society, my initial reaction was pragmatic and perhaps a bit cynical: Is journalism really what these folks need to be learning about? Couldn’t they benefit from something more practical?

With these questions in mind, I contacted Joyce Hutchens, the teacher at York Alternative High School who wrote the letter. We spoke at length about the school, about the passion many of her students bring to writing and the interest — sincere interest — that several of her pupils have expressed in pursuing a career in journalism when, and if, they’re released.
I told her I’d be happy to come in and help, and I said I’d ask around the newsroom to see if other colleagues would volunteer. Within hours of sending out a mass e-mail I’d heard from nearly thirty reporters and editors eager to participate.

I went to the jail myself for the first class. Built on nearly 100 acres about five miles southwest of downtown Chicago, the Cook County facility is the country’s largest single-site jail, a veritable distribution center for criminals. It’s an imposing complex and certainly not a setting that seems conducive to education.

Inside Division 8, under the flickering fluorescent lights of a cramped classroom, I met a group of eight young men. We spent two hours together. I explained my work at the Tribune and the highlights of my career. They asked pointed and insightful questions about the media and the manner in which journalists do their jobs. I touched on the basics of news writing: the hard news lede, the nut graf, how to ask the right questions. The time flew by.

And then I was gone. Out the gate, back into my car and off to a simple, comfortable world the inmates could only dream about.

What I walked away with surprised me. My colleagues who’ve gone to the class since have left with the same unexpected feeling, a feeling that, through talk of writing and journalism, we’d accomplished something, made a connection, introduced a flicker of hope and interest to a world that’s dark and dull.

Many of these young men may end up serving decades in prison. Some will go free and struggle to find their way in the world. This journalism-in-jail effort may have little impact on their lives.

But if just one of them is inspired to start writing, if just one sees an avenue toward a better life, then this odd-sounding program stops sounding so odd. And spending a couple hours behind the fence begins to feel surprisingly comfortable.

Rex W. Huppke has been a staff reporter at the Chicago Tribune since 2002, writing about everything from homicide in the city to an albino squirrel colony in rural Illinois. Before that he worked for The Associated Press in Indiana, covering news from across the state and anchoring the news service's coverage of the Timothy McVeigh execution.