"The Institute for Restorative Educational Engagement (IREE) is an initiative to enhance academic and civic programming for those who are or have been incarcerated, students with incarcerated loved ones, and their communities".
"Vincent de Paul and convicted men working the galley ships”
IREE is inspired by and continues St. Vincent’s lengthy service to the incarcerated. It is guided by the principle of Vincentian humanism, and by holistic and restorative approaches to harm, accountability, and justice.
DePaul is uniquely suited for the Institute for Restorative Educational Engagement. In 1619 and before the Congregation of the Mission was founded, King Louis XIII appointed St. Vincent as the “Royal Chaplain” to individuals sentenced to labor on France’s notorious galley ships. This ministry grew into a lifetime calling for St. Vincent, and he continued with it until his final years. With the Congregation of the Mission, Ste. Louise de Marillac, the Sisters of Charity, and the Daughters of Charity, he also innovated what we would now call re-entry services for formerly incarcerated people.
“Vincent de Paul in the prisons.”
DePaul is uniquely suited for this work in contemporary aspects as well. Roughly two thirds of the approximately 30,000 people incarcerated in Illinois are from Chicago. Roughly two thirds of them are Black and Latino. Cook County is widely known as an epicenter of false confessions and wrongful convictions. Illinois is one of only about fifteen states that essentially has no parole system. The result is long-term, multi-faceted marginalization of already marginalized communities—communities that are at the heart of DePaul’s Vincentian, urban mission.
In 2012, DePaul became the first university in Illinois to offer in-person course instruction at Stateville Correctional Center, a maximum-security prison near Joliet, in nearly twenty years. The course, on the topic of restorative justice, was taught in affiliation with the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program. Utilizing the Inside-Out model made DePaul the first college in Illinois to conduct a college course in a prison to a combination of incarcerated and traditional students. Since then, DePaul has offered a total of four different Inside-Out courses annually at Stateville, along with extra-curricular think-tanks that worked on projects such as an inside newsletter, a children’s book on restorative justice, and legislative policy analysis until the prison’s closure in late 2024. DePaul is currently reconfiguring its programming with the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) after being reassigned to Hill Correctional Center, located 3 hours away in Galesburg, IL.
In 2016 DePaul began offering Inside-Out courses at Cook County Correctional Center (CCC), one of the largest jails in the U.S. That same year, DePaul became the first university in Illinois to provide full course credit to incarcerated students at both the prison and the jail, at no cost to them. DePaul currently offers ten courses at the jail that span a broad array of topics. It is also leading the effort to create a pathway to an associate’s degree for students at the jail and, thanks to generous donors, will soon install a computer lab and library for those students. The organization DePaul Students Against Incarceration has facilitated a thriving book club at the jail since 2016; this activity now features visits by Sr. Helen Prejean during her annual sojourns to Chicago.
Stained glass image of St. Vincent ministering to the incarcerated.
(St. André church in Chatillon-sur-Chalaronne, France)DePaul has further distinguished itself as the first college to promote voting and civic engagement amongst those in prison and jail, and the first to participate in writing legislation with incarcerated students. A key outcome is the passage of the Re-Entering Citizens Civics Education Act, a state law that mandates civic education workshops as part of the exit process from prison. This law was written entirely at Stateville Correctional Center by a voluntary think-tank called the DePaul Behind the Walls Participatory Civics Collaborative. The Collaborative was established by DePaul Inside-Out alumni and faculty, along with staff from Chicago Votes and the Chicago Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights. The Re-Entering Citizens Civics Education Act was signed into law in 2019, and is the first and so far the only such law in the U.S.
The Collaborative also helped frame Illinois SB 2090, a companion law that mandates voter access for eligible voters in jail awaiting trial. SB 2090 is also the first such law in the U.S. Voter turnout at Cook County jail has exceeded that of Chicago at nearly every election since its passage, and turnout at Will County jail has grown as well. Since 2016, DePaul students and faculty have collaborated with Chicago Votes and the Chicago Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights to provide voter registration and voter access at the jail. After the passage of SB 2090, DePaul offered the initial civics education workshops for voters there, and now collaborates with the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics to prepare a cadre of volunteers to implement these workshops on an ongoing basis.