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ethics of care

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Get to know jailhouse lawyers and their loved ones through the words, wisdom, and experiences of incarcerated individuals who teach themselves the law to advocate for themselves and the rights of their peers. 

Please take care as you interact with these stories as they provide insight into alternatives and solutions to mass incarceration, but also touch upon difficult content, including confinement, medical neglect, and death, and retaliation that jailhouse lawyers routinely experience– from solitary confinement to transfers and restrictions on accessing law libraries and resources – simply because they seek to know, use, and shape law.

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This website was crafted on these principles, and we hope you enter this space feeling the same.

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Justice is honoring our complexity

Justice is honoring our complexity

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My thoughts and stuff be all over the place, because I'd be trying to do at least 100 different things at one time. I guess that's because I'm a Gemini, those two sides. I got one thing that I'm doing then I have another thing that I'm trying to accomplish. Right now, I've written the governor for clemency, I have a manager to test the tape for my business, then I'm sitting over here, going back to school, and then I have a state job. I'm doing 100 different things at once. Then I'm over here, dealing with finances like budgeting, teaching credit courses and credit counseling…I feel like I just be doing a million different things at one time all day long.
And then I got all these children. All my kids, all their stuff is my stuff too. I’m trying to make them walk through life with differences from what I had to walk through. The other day when I did my clemency report, my one son comes up to me and he's like, “Mom, what is that? It looks like a book.” I think these are my charges. I have 173 charges. And he's like, “What is this?” I was like, “That's my past.” That means that now, but each thing was a learning lesson.” Patricia High
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It was so tough for me to let my image go but I’m so thankful that I did. There are days that I feel this fear, there is this awareness that I’m not who I used to be. This time has given me freedom to recognize that I want to be an author, a researcher, a consultant, a doula. My mom is getting older and I want to be there for her, I want to be there for my kids. I value business, I value relationships” Jhody Polk
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We as women are already doing. We are living. We are surviving. We can see each other as more than work. We see each other. That makes shit feel safer. Being safe is about Knowing who you are. Knowing who is around Jhody Polk
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We have to show grace and mercy to people too. People do good. Then one thing bad happens and you will never forget it. I just had that happen. Last week I had a bad day, had a death in the family, and really kind of threw me for a loop and I didn’t get a chance to get over to my clients house.  I kind of felt like they held it against me, but I'm always there. I'm always, I'm always there. But why do we do that? Why do we forget all the good a person does when they have a bad day…We don’t give them the benefit of the doubt. We gotta give each other the benefit of the doubt. Diane Ross
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Justice ishonoring our complexity
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