Opening Song

Small Group Break Outs:

• Start with group introductions - by sharing your name, how did you join this conversation, and what are you hoping to get from the book club
• After introductions, have each person share either a reflection on the quote shared, or a separate part of the text that was most impactful and why
• If time allows, begin to explore additional discussion questions with your small group:
  • How can we most effectively advocate against the discrimination of former convicted persons?
  • The book ends with Jeremiah in despair over his inability to satisfy his parole requirements and Rueben uncertain about his brother’s future. What would you do if this were your sibling? How would you want the state to treat them?
  • When discussing criminal sentences, people use term “just” and “only” to describe terms of imprisonment and probation. Have you ever thought about how long “just” five years is or how it is “only” probation? How would you life change if you lost your autonomy for any amount of time?
  • How does gentrification contribute to criminalization?
  • Do you think the United States will ever be able to correct its past and continued mass incarceration of minority people within this country? What steps must be taken to make this possible?

Thank you to the UI College of Law Research Assistant for contributing to the discussion questions for this year's One Community, One Book Virtual Book Club.

At 4:40pm please return to the main Zoom room for the large group discussion and wrap up.

Summary Part 3: Salvation

Summary provided by UI Law Student Morgane Haddad

Chapter 7: Treatment

We go back to Zo’s story who spent nine years in prison and was released on five-year probation. This time, he tells us about his experience in the halfway house and the difficulty to manage to stay there and make the 400$ rent. He tells us about his experience with Emmaus Road in North Lawndale, Chicago where forty men lived. While they had to follow a number of rules like staying sober and not having pets, they were provided a place to sleep and food. Zo attended multiple programs there, which helped him, and he was given a job. He received promotion after promotion and ended up being in charge of who could be admitted to Emmaus Road: they had to show they wanted to change. There is a discussion around reentry program and their efficiency to allow formerly incarcerated people to reenter the job market. He also tells us about the Second Chance Act, which according to Miller, allotted millions of dollars for men and women to learn the etiquette of finding a job without actually opening the job market to them. Once again, Miller explains that this is a problem of citizenship: it does not matter how much help these men and women receive for this program if there is no possibility for them to actually reenter the job market and secure housing.

Chapter 8: Power

Yusef: he was nineteen when he was convicted of a robbery and his father was already in prison for murder. During their time in prison, they reunited and Yusef became religious like his father. Miller met him through Ronald. Miller describes a point that Ronald makes in his lectures about having to change people’s hearts and minds about an issue to achieve reform. While Miller seems skeptical about it, he recognizes that there is a need for changing mentalities to make sure that the law stays linear. He then goes on to tell us more about the mechanisms of his brother’s release from prison for parole. He talks about the difficulties of finding a place for him to say that would be deemed acceptable by a probation officer. In Jeremiah’s case, the apartment that Miller found for his brother was rejected by the parole board because there were dogs living there.

Chapter 9: America, Goddamn!

In the last chapter of the book, Miller finally picks up his brother Jeremiah from prison. He had finally found a place for him to stay. He took him to meet his parole officer and then his four returns to jail in the four months span since he was released from prison. He manages to find work: first at a diner and then in a factory but neither of those work out for him. He is arrested twice more over the next four months and sent to another drug-treatment program.