In 2004, a judge told then 19-year-old Benard McKinley he would spend his next 97 birthdays behind bars. Last month, however, McKinley turned 39 as a free man and opened a hard-won birthday gift: an acceptance...

Dozens of people lined up alongside The Arch Monday, waving pom poms and clapping enthusiastically as Benard McKinley (NPEP ’23) marched through it. Every year at Northwestern, thousands of incoming...

William Peeples spent 13 years on death row before having his sentence commuted in 2003 to life without parole. Since joining the Northwestern Prison Education Program, Peeples has had the chance to study...

Author and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates will address the first class of incarcerated students in the United States to graduate with a bachelor’s degree from a top 10 university. The Northwestern Prison...