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WIU LEJA Student Teaching Class, Life Lessons to Juvenile Inmates

May 15, 2020

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Editor's Note: This is the 13th in a series of feature stories about Western Illinois University faculty who are adapting and finding unique ways to reach their students during the COVID-19 Pandemic, and how their students are using the information they learn.

MACOMB, IL – When Jacob Franklin began studying law enforcement and justice administration at Western Illinois University, he left behind a past that included time as a police officer, logistics company owner, opioid addict and prison inmate.

Franklin, now a correctional officer at a juvenile detention facility in Iowa, has taken the lessons he learned in Professor Robert Kelly's criminal procedure class this semester and incorporated them into group activities to inspire the inmates he now supervises.

After leaving his job as a police officer and correctional officer, Franklin worked 12 years in logistics, eventually owning his own successful company. While riding his motorcycle in 2010, Franklin was hit by a car in a near-fatal accident that led to major surgeries, a long recovery and an eventual addiction to the opioids he was prescribed for pain.

"I then developed side effects, only to be prescribed other powerful medications that kept snowballing," he said. "By 2016, I was on approximately eight different medications that had completely rewired my brain."

The addiction led to writing bad checks to pay his bills and, eventually, to a three-month prison term for charges in Illinois and Iowa.

"Since that time, I haven't been on any medications and am back to my old self - law-abiding, honest and ethical," he said. "When I was released from prison, I made a decision that I would come back stronger than ever. I knew I wanted to do something big as a statement, but I didn't know what. The first thing I wanted to do was to get back into the criminal justice system just to show everyone that told me I would never serve again that they were wrong."

Franklin decided he wanted to go back to school to become an attorney, but found it difficult to find a job to support himself with his criminal record. He eventually found work on hog farms, then a management company that manages the dietary departments at nursing homes and later handling the finances for a restaurant.

It was a conversation with the law enforcement officers who initially investigated him that changed his career path.

"They said they had been watching my progress and were greatly impressed," Franklin said. "I received a phone call from my current correctional facility. They said the law enforcement officials contacted them and said they felt I deserved a second chance. The application process was extensive and very long, for obvious reasons."

While working at the maximum-security juvenile facility and doing inmate transports as a second job, Franklin began taking law enforcement classes at an Iowa community college and eventually earned his associate degree. He began studying at WIU in Spring 2020 and will enter law school in Fall 2021, after finishing his LEJA degree and corrections minor at WIU. Working more than full time and taking five classes at WIU, Franklin has earned "As" in all of his classes and was invited to join WIU's pre-law fraternity, Phi Alpha Delta.

While Franklin was studying for assignments in Kelly's class, he was reviewing Supreme Court decisions and began talking about subject matter with some of the juvenile offenders.

"As I was describing the case that I had to do a brief on, the next thing I knew I had the entire pod around me going over the facts of the case and the issue the court was deciding," he said. "There was much debate, and I gave them the decision, with the courts' reasoning. Now, every week, they want the 'scenarios' to go over, to debate, and then understand the decision and the legal reasoning of the court."

The legal discussions soon replaced the typical group activities and the 15- to 17-year-old inmates were excited about discussing legal cases.

"Now I bring out a dry erase board into the pod, everyone circles around, and I have the case written on the board, as well as the facts of the case; just going over it like a brief," Franklin said. "I present the facts, and the issue before the court. We debate what the ruling should be, and then I read how the court ruled, with the main legal reasoning arguments by the justices. I rarely interject my opinion and mainly report the reasoning, as I am not an attorney."

Franklin said he shares his life story with the juvenile offenders, trying to get through to them and motivate them to change their path. He said he has had some success with his efforts, but this group activity engages the teens and makes them use their minds.

"I have been on both sides of the law, so I look at the paradigm differently," Franklin said. "What are we doing to set these offenders up for success? Not much. Should the path for redemption be hard? Absolutely. Should an offender have to earn redemption? Absolutely. But should it be reasonable for an offender to know that they have a chance to be among the most elite if they earn it? Absolutely. If I can have just one offender write to me six years from now saying they earned their GED, went to college and received their degree, has a good, honest job, and a good family, it would mean more than anything to me."

Franklin said the administration at the correctional facility took notice of what he was doing with the case discussions, and appreciate the exercise more than the regularly-scheduled activities. An added bonus for Franklin is that it helped him better understand the material because he is taking all of his classes online.

Kelly called Franklin an "exceptional student with a profound interest in the law and an enthusiasm that inspires others."

"A fundamental role of education is to positively impact both individual lives and societies as a whole," Kelly said. "Jacob shared with me how his study of criminal procedure this semester began expanding beyond the virtual classroom and positively impacting others. When inmates learned what he had been studying this semester, they were interested in learning along with him. Jacob saw an opportunity here to make a meaningful impact and assumed the role of facilitator, going over case fact patterns with the inmates and moderating debates."

Kelly said Franklin is "actively inspiring healthy outlets of intellectual curiosity and reaching the inmates in innovative ways."

"I have no doubt lives will be positively impacted by Jacob's innovativeness and willingness to share his educational experience with others," Kelly added. "Students like him, in turn, also inspire their professors. There is nothing more satisfying than to see the classroom come alive in unanticipated ways."

Franklin said once he is an attorney he would like to work with prison and jail ministries to inspire offenders to changes their lives. He said the juveniles he works with now have joked that they will hire him to represent them once he finishes law school.

"I am open with them about my story and try to motivate them to change their lives," he said.

For more information about the WIU School of LEJA, visit wiu.edu/leja.

Posted By: Jodi Pospeschil (JK-Pospeschil@wiu.edu)
Office of University Communications & Marketing