Renee Cramer, associate professor and chair of Law, Politics, and Society (LPS), traveled with four LPS students to San Quentin prison to attend a LiveLaw event in early December. The trip follows these students’ successful efforts to bring LiveLaw, a legal storytelling event, to Des Moines for the first time in spring 2015. Students partnered with national producers and oversaw story curating, event planning, grant writing, and publicity of the event, which was featured on the Life of Law website and podcast. Their efforts led to an invitation from Life of Law Executive Producer Nancy Mullane—a journalist and author of Life after Murder: Fine Men in in Search of Redemption, which the students read in class—to join her and 300 inmates and civilians for LiveLaw San Quentin, which will be podcast on Christmas day. They will bring their experience at San Quentin back to class and will also put on a public program in the spring to discuss what they observed and learned.

The trip also complements students’ ongoing learning about the nation’s correctional system and social justice issues. Students ahve engaged in ride-alongs with Des Moines police and made a trip to the Iowa Correctional Institution for Women in Mitchellville.

—Submitted by Emily Kruse, Assistant to the Dean