From the Center for Investigative Reporting in PRX, this is Reveal. I'm Alex.

Ever since Seth Uphoff was a little kid, he knew what he wanted to be when he grew up.

No, not a fireman, musician, or famous athlete.

I'm a little odd in that at about the age of 12, I figured out that I wanted to be a prosecutor.

And I know this sounds maybe a little cheesy, but really when I think back on it, I think a lot of it started with Law and Order.

Law and Order. As in the TV show, Salacious Court cases ripped from the headlines.

Seth grew up watching these fictional prosecutors in New York battle it out in court.

As prosecutors, they were doing what I thought was right and trying to uphold justice and put the bad guys behind bars.

And maybe part of his fascination with Law and Order, both the show and the career, was because he grew up in Livingston County, Illinois, home of the Pontiac Correctional Center.

Most anybody who grew up in Livingston County has some connection to the prison.

You can hear the, there's a big horn that sounds at the prison, you can hear that, even out in the country.

Depending on which way the wind's blown and how clear of a day it is, you can hear things from even out where I lived.

And so the prison was a very large, looming figure in Livingston County.

There was a lot of kids that grew up with their parents or friends who were prison guards.

One of my very good friends, his dad, was a prison guard and so growing up, going over to his house, you know, you'd see his dad come home from work.

He would tell stories about what goes on in there and as somebody who was growing up in a small farming community, you'd hear about some of these guys and it would, you know, make your eyes widen.

And it weirdly gave you a little sense of pride that, wow, we're dealing with big things here in this little area.

When Seth grew up, he got his law degree and eventually moved back home to Livingston County, where he ran for the position of state's attorney.

That's the local prosecutor.

He won the election, but once he got the job, his sense of right and wrong, didn't always square with how the criminal justice system actually works.

This week, we're partnering with the podcast motive from WBEZ Chicago to find out what happened when Seth tried to buck the system.

The show's host, Shannon Heffernan, came across his story as she was investigating blind spots at big prisons in small towns.

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