Dant'e Cottingham , who was formerly incarcerated, brings his perspective on the criminal justice system to students in a UW Law School class. | Photo courtesy UW Law School

A new class at the University of Wisconsin Law School aims to teach students about the perspectives of different people who are part of the criminal justice system, including those who are incarcerated. 

Dant’e Cottingham, one of the course instructors, was himself once locked up inside Wisconsin’s prison system. He said that according to stigma, he’s not supposed to be in the classroom.

“So I’m aware of that, and I carry that,” Cottingham said. “That’s important to me, because I want to make sure that the city, the state, the country knows that we are a lot more than our worst mistake.”

Instructing the class along with Cottingham is Adam Stevenson, a clinical professor and director of the Frank J. Remington Center, which houses the law school’s prison-based clinics as well as the public defender and prosecution externships. While Cottingham has the experience of being incarcerated in the prison system, Stevenson brings to the course the legal expertise of a law professor, and one who has worked with a program focused on legal assistance to incarcerated people. 

The Wednesday class, which has 19 students enrolled this semester,  counts for two credits. It’s titled “Criminal Justice System: A Lived Experience Perspective.” The class, examining how theory, policy and practice line up with reality — or diverge from it, according to the syllabus, may continue in the future depending on how this semester goes. 

In 1996, Cottingham was convicted of being party to a crime for first-degree intentional homicide for an offense that occurred when he was 17. While incarcerated, Cottingham applied to UW Madison’s program for legal assistance for incarcerated people and was assigned two law students who worked to help him win his release, he said. He was paroled in 2022. 

Cottingham served as interim associate director of the group Ex-Incarcerated People Organizing, and spoke publicly about Green Bay Correctional Institution, where he spent some of his imprisonment, and which has been the subject of criticism for inhumane conditions and calls to close the facility. Now 47, Cottingham is the reentry and outreach support specialist for the Remington Center. He said he helps men and women who are transitioning from incarceration.  

“I sit with people, build a rapport, get some insight and understanding to what their needs are,” Cottingham said. A person’s needs might involve housing, employment or medical care. 

Cottingham said that when he gave presentations in classes in the past,  students engaged with his description of his own experience, and he saw a need for the course he’s teaching now.

The experience of re-entering society after prison is one topic on the course schedule Cottingham shared with the Examiner. The arrest process, the trial process, sentencing, systemic inequality in criminal justice, and incarceration, and advocacy for reform and future directions are among the other course topics.

Guest speakers in the class range from Wisconsin Department of Corrections Secretary Jared Hoy, to Wood County District Attorney Jonathan Barnett, to Sharmain Harris, whose book “Rising Above the Odds: My Journey from Pain and Prison to Power and Purpose” is one of the required materials for the course. Requirements include book reports that analyze autobiographies of people who have experienced incarceration. 

Jini Jasti, a spokesperson for University of Wisconsin Law School, said UW Law’s motto is “Law in Action.” She said the school does not only teach the law on the books but also encourages students to see how it works from different perspectives, such as those of prosecutors, defense attorneys, victims, defendants and prisoners.  

“This unique class complements our other offerings, allowing students to hear about our trial, appellate and prison systems from someone who’s lived it,” Jasti said in a statement. 

State Public Defender Jennifer Bias and Robert Taliaferro, who was formerly incarcerated, visited the class on Wednesday. 

Bringing in these different perspectives helps  “tease out topics that we should be discussing when we’re talking about what the law is, how the law should operate etc.,” Stevenson said in a Jan. 16 interview with the Wisconsin Examiner. “One person’s perspective is definitely great in doing that, but having multiple perspectives and the potential disagreement, or the clash, if you will, can also give rise to some really rich conversation.”  

Stevenson said students will be graduating and working with clients as attorneys, and understanding the perspectives of people in the criminal justice system is important. 

Lara Hendrix, a third year law student, is planning to be a public defender after graduation. She said she thought the class would be valuable for her future career. 

Hendrix hopes that eventually people who don’t plan to practice criminal law take the class. 

“These are real people with families, and people that love them, and other people that are affected,” Hendrix said, “and that needs so much more attention than it gets.”