The public is getting a glimpse into the trials and triumphs of jailhouse lawyers through the Oct. 16 release of “Flashlights,” a digital archive created by the Jailhouse Lawyer Initiative (JLI). “Flashlights,” which features over 350 letters, art pieces, interviews, poems, and oral histories, amplifies the experiences of jailhouse lawyers and legal advocates in prison who often make an incredible impact while working with meager resources.

Founded by Jhody Polk—a formerly incarcerated jailhouse lawyer from Florida—and housed within NYU School of Law’s Bernstein Institute for Human Rights, the Jailhouse Lawyer Initiative (JLI) seeks to invest in incarcerated individuals who legally advocate for themselves and their peers. 

In addition to supporting a national network of more than 1,000 current and former jailhouse lawyers, JLI also seeks to provide legal curricula to jailhouse lawyers, forge relationships between law schools and jailhouse lawyers who are imprisoned in their state, and raise the visibility of jailhouse lawyers. 

Among the many features within the “Flashlights” archive are video interviews with formerly incarcerated jailhouse lawyers illuminating the type of work they did inside and an interactive timeline showing the history of jailhouse lawyer advocacy stretching back to the 18th century. Polk described these inside advocates as “invisible defenders” who often do not receive adequate support and are excluded from bar associations and legal organizations despite being core members of the legal ecosystem. He hopes the timeline will help situate jailhouse lawyers within larger movements of prison advocacy. 

“Jailhouse lawyers have been shaping historical events that affected even outside communities [but] people might not know a jailhouse lawyer was a part of it and that movement building has, historically, also been happening from inside,” Polk said.

Pillars and targets

Jailhouse lawyers are incarcerated individuals without formal legal training but have begun studying the law while inside in order to advocate for themselves and others. 

“One of the misconceptions is that jailhouse lawyers are only focusing on post-conviction issues and trying to get people out of jail, and that’s just not the case,” Polk said.

Jailhouse lawyers help people with their parole, probation, and clemency requests. They also offer support for innocence claims and help advocate for early release on new state-based statutes for which some people might be newly eligible. But many also work on civil cases—often, these cases may revolve around family law matters including parental rights, child support, granting rights for children to visit incarcerated parents, probate issues, and requests to transfer to facilities that are closer to home. 

“Jailhouse lawyers also address issues of confinement and [violations of] their constitutional rights as incarcerated individuals,” Polk said. “Because of the knowledge that they have of prison codes, jailhouse lawyers may support people in administrative hearings who [received] a disciplinary action by the prison or had their property taken away.” 

Members within JLI’s network have also assisted on immigration cases wherein someone’s incarceration may lead to deportation, as well as helped people craft appeals to maintain their professional licenses despite being incarcerated. Polk also mentioned that jailhouse lawyers, even those serving life sentences, play a major role in helping prepare their peers who will return home for some of the collateral consequences of having a criminal record that they’ll experience post-release. These consequences can include housing access, employment, and voting rights.

While an incarcerated person’s right to legally advocate for themselves is protected by the U.S. Supreme Court via the 1969 decision in Johnson v. Avery, many jailhouse lawyers frequently face retaliation due to their advocacies.

“In some places, jailhouse lawyers are seen as pillars [and] they have a different respect about them within the prison,” Polk said. “But in most places, that knowledge of the law makes them a threat.”

Within the JLI network, Polk has heard of jailhouse layers having their property seized—including electronics that hold important legal resources—detention in solitary confinement, or, in the case of a member based in Philadelphia, the removal of legal resources that were stored in the prison dayroom because the facility did not have a formal law library. 

“Sometimes our members write to us [about] either being placed in confinement or losing their materials,” said Polk. “Jailhouse lawyers can [also] be moved around. [If] you start doing too good of work or you start empowering people to know and ask questions, you may find yourself moved in the middle of the night to a facility that you are just not connected to.”

JLI helps support members facing harassment by connecting with local advocacy, human rights, and grassroots groups who can stage campaigns on the lawyers’ behalf. In applicable cases, JLI’s managing attorney can call the facility directly. 

Members of JLI also say that jailhouse lawyering often created opportunities for inside-outside organizing as legal professionals on the outside can help support claims made by lawyers inside prison. The release of manuals and guidebooks for potential litigants inside and their families or loved ones is also an example of this organizing across the wall. Groups like the Center for Constitutional Rights, the National Lawyers Guild, the UCLA Law Review, and the Columbia Human Rights Law Review have all released multiple editions of handbooks and manuals for jailhouse lawyers.

An illuminating archive

JLI’s new “Flashlights” archive serves as an example of the connective potential of jailhouse lawyering and the possibilities for shared understanding when materials that expose the realities of life inside are made public. 

Polk and her team also began hosting feminist circles both inside and outside of prisons to assess the barriers to advocacy for incarcerated women. The “Flashlights” archive reflects the insights gleaned from those circles through “Us, Too,” a section dedicated exclusively to interviews and quotes from female jailhouse lawyers.

In addition to “Us, Too” and an interactive timeline showing the history of jailhouse lawyers, “Flashlights” houses a collection of 350 letters from members inside illuminating the risks of their work, how they access legal materials inside, and an interactive feature where visitors can search for information about jailhouse lawyers incarcerated in their state. Polk hopes the resource inspires visitors to build relationships with these “invisible defenders” and interrogate any stigma they may have held towards jailhouse lawyers. 

One of the most compelling and sobering realities about jailhouse lawyers is the number of them who are serving life sentences and yet continue to offer solutions and aid to their incarcerated peers.

“What has always stood out to me is how many people write to us with solutions and values and creative expressions of art,” Polk said. “They say those closest to the problem are closest to the solution, but our members, a lot of them with life sentences, are imagining new worlds, which is what we say abolition is: this radical act of imagination. I honestly have seen more free people in prisons than I have seen on the outside.” 

“Flashlights” will be formally introduced to the public at a launch event on Oct. 16 in New York City. The archive is available for viewing online at jailhouselawyers.org.