Issue Home Volume 11: Issue 4

Service Learning In-Justice:
Bringing a Spiritual Experience to Understanding the “Other”

Norman White, Ph.D.
Director of Criminal Justice Programs
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice

Students in criminal justice programs routinely complete internships where they work side-by-side with police officers, lawyers, probation officers, and a host of practitioners to obtain an experiential understanding of their chosen field. Missing from the experiences of students is the "client" view. Who are these people with whom criminal justice practitioners routinely interact? Are they simply the unjust? Are they people who have chosen to and enjoy living on the other side of the law? The "Other" in criminal justice is often unknown to the naive young souls that enter the field. Students in Service Learning may have never crossed paths with people who because of a multitude of factors, become entangled with the law. Criminal justice is more than bringing the offender to the Bar; it also has a restorative quality that brings into harmony the natural and spiritual world. The Jesuit mission and Ignatian pedagogy indicates that to live in harmony with the spirit is to work for justice. Working for justice represents the earthly manifestation of a love of God and God's love for us.

Service Learning In-Justice offers an opportunity to get ones hands dirty and rub elbows with clients or potential clients in a safe learning environment, an environment where the "Other" resides. Outside the walls of academia are communities where the residents, due to historical neglect and contemporary ambivalence reside with daily risk. While evidence shows that most members of these communities will not participate in criminal behavior, many still fall victim to it. The social challenges are many but you cannot see them by driving through. It takes a moment or two outside of one's comfort zone to engage and find the humanity of the residents no matter which side of the law they are on.

Students in my Criminal Justice courses from Intro to upper level courses are asked to volunteer in the community at one of three programs, Neighbors assisting Neighbors, Herbert Hoover Boys & Girls Club, or the Juvenile Detention Center, to experience the other side of justice. The program is in its embryonic stages. However, the students have found the experience to be one that changes their perception of the system, the way they see communities and the people within them. Learning is an academic experience, but academic experiences need not be constrained to the classroom or the textbook. The experience is the lesson. I see the textbooks in class as augmenting the experiences outside in the "real world". We learn better who we are and where we fit in the world by engaging it. Interacting with others gives us a chance to learn their humanity and spiritual essence and just as important, our own. The gifts are many and so are the lessons; if the experience makes for an informed practitioner that is a plus. I believe that the experience fits squarely in the Jesuit pedagogical tradition and will enhance the effort of making our students "young men and women for others." I hope that more will be revealed as this effort unfolds and that opportunities to share the experience with others emerge.

Last updated 04.28.09