When Jhody Polk was arrested, convicted and jailed in 2007, she was initially sent to Lowell Correctional Institution in Marion County, Fla. After several months in Lowell, she was transferred to the privately run Gadsden Correctional Facility, 200 miles away in Quincy, Fla.
She told Ms. that it was in Gadsden that she not only found a law library, but also met a group of women called Law Clerks who had been trained to help others: doing legal research, filing appeals and applications in addition to assisting other incarcerated women with the paperwork needed to request a pardon, early release or lodge a complaint about dangerous conditions or abuse by correction officers or others.
Although all of the Clerks at Gadsden were serving life sentences and she was not, Polk says that the prison’s librarian—a civilian employee—encouraged her to join their ranks. She did, studying to become a “jailhouse lawyer,” a shift she considers life-changing.
Since her release from prison in 2014, Polk has worked tirelessly. In 2018, she founded the Jailhouse Lawyer Initiative (JLI), a national network of over 1,000 current and former jailhouse lawyers, now housed at the Robert and Helen Bernstein Institute for Human Rights at New York University School of Law, and has been involved in numerous legal empowerment education and prison abolition efforts. This has won her many accolades, including a 2020 Martin Luther King Jr. Legacy Award and a 2018 Soros Justice Fellowship.
Polk spoke to Ms. reporter Eleanor J. Bader about JLI in late October.
Eleanor J. Bader: Had you been interested in the law before your incarceration?
Jhody Polk: I was a bail bondsman when I was arrested and years earlier it had crossed my mind to become a lawyer or work in corrections but I had not done so. It was only after I was sent to prison that I was introduced to Law Clerks; I saw that these women had prestige. They were leaders. All of them were facing life in prison so I assumed that since I was serving a seven-year sentence, I was not eligible to become a Clerk. Thankfully, the librarian saw something in me. She treated me like a person and encouraged me to study.
Bader: Tell me about the Law Clerk training.
Polk: The training had 15 modules that covered the court system, the way the government is supposed to work and included information on how to file direct appeals or applications for mitigation, post-conviction release or clemency. I was given these old photocopies and had 30 days to go through each one. I then had to take a proctored exam that was given in the law library.
After I completed my answers, the exam paper was sent to the Department of Corrections where it was graded. To pass, I needed a grade of 70. I completed the training in 10 months and became a licensed Law Clerk, an unpaid position at Gadsden.
When I spoke to these women, they often told me that I was the first person to listen to them. In some cases, that’s all I could do. I helped women process their sentences and grieve what had happened while always looking for grounds for appeal.
Jhody Polk
Bader: What was the work like? Were any cases particularly memorable?
Polk: I used the training, along with a lot of trial and error, to help many women. Sometimes they wanted to challenge a conviction. Or they’d get divorce papers or papers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and I would have to get involved in civil cases, family law cases as well as cases that dealt with issues of confinement. I did this from 9:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m., Monday through Saturday.
I was lucky. In some prisons when an incarcerated person knows something about the law, they face abuse from corrections officers, but at Gadsden, Law Clerks were respected.
In addition to working with the women, we were the only people, other than prison staff, who interacted with youthful offenders, incarcerated kids who were sometimes 14 or 15 years old.
One case I remember vividly involved a young lady who I’d known in elementary, middle and high school. We had not seen each other in more than 10 years. She had a daughter, was pregnant during her arrest and the pre-trial phase, and was trying to navigate custody of her little girl from inside. I went through her score sheet and sentencing record and saw that she’d been given two five-year sentences, 10 years, the maximum allowed, to be served concurrently. I recognized that she could have been given probation or a lighter sentence and was able to help her get resentenced. She ultimately served four years.
But I want to stress that this work does not always result in the person going home. Many of the cases I dealt with involved women who’d had a child murdered by a partner. I had to go through autopsy reports, see photos and review court transcripts. It was obvious to me that there was no intent on the part of these women to kill anyone. Many of them were themselves victims of interpersonal violence.
When I spoke to these women, they often told me that I was the first person to listen to them. In some cases, that’s all I could do. I helped women process their sentences and grieve what had happened while always looking for grounds for appeal.
Having legal knowledge and sharing it was empowering for them—and for me.
The women I met in prison wanted to help each other. When I learned that the sentence I was given was fair because of the crimes I had committed, I became mentally and emotionally free. I quickly learned that the law could be protective as well as harmful and I took a “participatory defense approach” to my work. I could translate the law, break it down, and teach it to the ladies for use for themselves. I was inspired by the women I served time with. It was the first time in my life that I had healthy relationships with other women.
I got a lot back from this work. The women treated me as if I was a lawyer. I felt loved and did this work for five years until I was accepted into work release.
Bader: How did this foundational work evolve into the Jailhouse Lawyer Initiative?
Polk: I became a Soros justice fellow in 2018 and attended a Global Legal Empowerment Leadership course in Budapest through the Fellowship. I spent nine days in Hungary, with 20 people from 10 countries. I was the only formerly incarcerated person there and fell deeply in love with the idea and scope of legal empowerment.
Directors from the Bernstein Institute for Human Rights at NYU Law School were also at the course, and when they heard about my work, they showed a lot of interest in jailhouse lawyers as community paralegals in the United States; they became founding partners with me to build out the mission of the JLI.
In 2019, I launched the Legal Empowerment and Advocacy Hub (LEAH), and the JLI was launched as a project of LEAH. The Bernstein Institute became the first law school home of the JLI.
Being housed in a law school is strategic. NYU gives the Initiative access to resources and NYU law students help drive the work. Together, we’ve developed a jailhouse lawyer training for people incarcerated throughout New York state. We’re hoping the Department of Corrections will adopt this curriculum and make it the official statewide program of study. We’ve also been able to send law students into the prisons to do in-person training.
We hope to take this model to Louisiana shortly.
Bader: Did you replicate the training modules from Gadsden?
Polk: No.
We have co-created national training modules that can be accessed on our website and on prison tablets through Edovo. We also send them to our active members through our quarterly newsletters via USPS mail correspondence. The topics include how to file Freedom of Information requests, do legal research and legal writing, complete habeas corpus petitions and promote human rights and reentry. We’re currently partnering with the Gender Justice Clinic at Fordham Law School to co-create a module on restorative justice.
In most places, the modules can be completed as self study; in New York, we have partnered with law students to run in-person classes. Our approach centers on legal empowerment and peace building and we always encourage open dialogue between community stakeholders and the legal ecosystem.
Bader: Have prison administrators welcomed or resisted these classes?
Polk: We get pushback at times, and sometimes JLI’s managing attorney has to intervene. We try to build relationships with people in prison mailrooms to ensure that people get our materials, but we also have to deal with frequent rule changes. For example, a prison will suddenly ban the use of mailing labels on a package so we’ll have to hand address a packet of training materials if it gets returned to us.
Bader: How many jailhouse lawyers are connected to JLI?
Polk: We have 1,000 members—all of whom are current or former jailhouse lawyers. The majority of them are male. We know that women experience the law differently and have adopted feminist practices and feminist circles to understand the unique challenges facing women. We’re developing strategies for supporting them in knowing, using and shaping the law.
A newly launched JLI project, called Flashlights, designed by Zealous includes handwritten letters, art, audio and videos in which jailhouse lawyers speak about their work and dreams. A number of women are showcased which we hope will inspire others to be creative and collaborative in partnering with women in prison. More generally, Flashlights is meant to give increased visibility to jailhouse lawyers and demonstrate their immense impact. We also maintain an archive.
Bader: Is there anything else you want to say about this work?
Polk: One of the biggest disappointments we’ve faced is the fact that we can’t respond to every letter we receive. But we keep track of each correspondence and at least three people read every message before it is archived.
Nonetheless, because we don’t provide direct services, it can be painful to be unable to help everyone with everything. At the same time, we know that we need to keep focused and utilize the law to build legal empowerment, advocate with those in prisons, improve carceral policies and organize to create just solutions that honor each individual’s humanity and promise. We hope that Flashlights will attract partnerships with more lawyers, law schools prison administrators, researchers, media and community organizers.
