A Student Perspective

Phillip Allevato, Pepperdine Law School JD Candidate '24, joined us for our spring Prison Project.

This past week, we hosted a delegation of 20 international lawyers and law students. They teamed up with 20 Ugandan lawyers and law students for Pepperdine's spring Prison Project serving in two prisons in Western Uganda. During four very hot, long days in prison courtyards, our teams met with inmates to discuss charges ranging from murder to the theft of five plastic chairs. By the end of the week, we had reviewed nearly 500 cases, resolved 260 through plea bargaining and saw 73 people go home immediately.

Today, we received this note from Phillip Allevato, one of the law students from Pepperdine who joined us. It was an honor to watch Phillip in the prisons last week. I think his words embody the richness of this experience for so many on our team. With his permission, I share his reflection below.

"Hi All,

After over 40 hours of travel, delays, a passenger medical emergency, and an insanely long customs line, I finally made it home early in the morning on Monday! But now that I have had a day to think, I wanted to send y'all a brief reflection of my time in Uganda, just in case you would like to know how the trip affected at least one of us. Working in Uganda at the Prison Project was frustrating, difficult, costly, and tiring. But it also reminded me of why I came to law school in the first place: to work for justice and the reconciliation of creation. So, the trip was good. Very good. Nothing in law school or even in my life has felt quite like it - and certainly nothing prepared me for it. Spending all day in a prison yard in the heat took a physical toll, and diving headfirst into brutal, shocking facts and seeing perpetrators face-to-face took an emotional toll, even presenting moral quandaries at times. But that close contact and direct interaction also demanded that I recognize the imago dei of each person behind a case file, and reminded me that we are all more than the worst mistake we have made. Knowing that many individuals were going free or would get out of prison soon because of our work gave a satisfaction that went beyond mere happiness; one that spoke to a more lasting sort of meaningfulness - the knowledge that for these image-bearers, lives were radically changed for the better. And, with each individual act, we were building the capacity of an entire nation and continent to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly before God. I don't know if I will end up doing human rights work in the future. But I do know that no other work that I have done has been so clearly the work of the Gospel, as Jesus proclaimed from the scroll of Isaiah: 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.'

Best,

Phillip Allevato

Pepperdine Caruso Law, JD Candidate '24"