Carleton criminology professor Darryl Davies said teaching at the Saskatchewan Penitentiary was a educational experience that helped form his character as someone who challenges the status quo..In 1976, Davies taught a sociology class at the federal prison near Prince Albert. His students included four guards and 14 prisoners, one of whom was David Milgaard. Davies remembers him as a quiet and polite student who overcame his shy bent to ask questions in class. .Milgaard was later exonerated of the rape and murder conviction that put him in jail. ironically, Davies’ the last scheduled class to teach him was cancelled when convicted prisoners tried to make a jailbreak..“The inmates were occupying the dome in the prison there and were refusing to go to their cells. This turned out to be a very elaborate ruse by the inmates, because by doing that and distracting the institution, there were five other inmates that were burrowing their way out of the prison walls.”.Davies said the inmates’ escape plan was foiled days later when some inmates and the hole they were digging in the wall were discovered — just one metre from freedom. Davies made up for the cancelled Thursday night class by teaching on a Saturday morning. The change in schedule left his entrance administered by a “hard-nosed” guard he had never seen before..“There's this old 65-year-old guy who had a chip on his shoulder and didn't like people like me coming into an institution where those inmates should be punished, I guess. You could just read it on his face. So of course, he demanded to see everything in my briefcase. I showed him, and then he screams at me, ‘What's in the bag?!’”.The bag had nothing but coffee, and Davies was forced to drink it in a little cubicle a short distance away. .“I went on and taught my class, little realizing that just as in the police subculture, there's a prison subculture,” Davies recalled. .Leaving jail was even harder..“I was about to just walk out like I always do when this guy, this guard was still there, barked at me, ‘Where do you think you're going? I want to see everything in your briefcase.’ So I opened my briefcase. And then he said, ‘Give me everything in your pockets!’ So I look at him hesitatingly, and he says, ‘If you don't, I'll have this woman here strip search you.’ .“And she was a very, very large woman, okay? I knew that she could do it with no problem and would probably enjoy it. So I thought, ‘I can't fight the battle here. I'm outnumbered.’ So I simply complied.”.Davies complained to the Solicitor General about the incident. This led to profuse apologies from his office, and an offer from the warden to take him out to a meal. After the final exam was over, a guard took Davies out for drinks to ask him a question..“’Did the warden take you out for dinner and tell you that the guard was a complete and utter you know what?’ I said, ‘Absolutely.’ He says — my God, you won't believe it — 'They took the prison guard out and told them the same thing about you!’”.Milgaard was released from jail in 1992, having served 23 years for the rape and murder of Saskatoon nurse Gail Miller. Newly emerged DNA evidence in 1997 led to the conviction of Larry Fisher for the crime in 2005..Thirty-eight years after Davies visited Milgaard to teach at his institution, Milgaard accepted Davies’ invitation to return the favour. In 2014, Milgaard give the fifth annual lecture by the Wrongful Conviction and Injustice Association of Carleton University. Davies introduced him to a packed auditorium by recounting the stories of this article and the poem Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven by William Butler Yeats. .According to Peter Russell of Carleton’s school newspaper, The Charleton, Milgaard said fighting for compensation from the government was like being in a second prison..“The right way to have people change their minds about doing wrong is to surround them with love and care. They will feel bad about what they have done wrong and they will decide themselves not to do it again,” Milgaard told his audience..After the address, Davies showed Milgaard a 1976 University of Saskatchewan alumni association publication called the Green and White. It included a photograph of Davies in front of a chalkboard wearing a wide tartan tie teaching Milgaard’s class while the latter sat in the second row with curly locks and a white T-shirt..“I did give him a copy of it and showed him the picture. My God, he couldn't believe it,” Davies recalled..Davies said he was sad to hear of Milgaard’s passing and appreciated how he refused to be bitter about life. He believes many people are wrongfully jailed and that judges who sentence people to jail should spend time there to know what it’s really like..“It's not good enough to say I saw a movie or I have an idea. That's not good enough,” Davies said..“I guess my personality or my education prepared me to take on the status quo.”
