Tagjails

Jailhouse Lawyering From the Beginning

Abstract Jailhouse lawyering is a form of resistance against the prison industrial complex that seeks to silence and disappear prisoners.  This Essay describes the author’s acts of resistance, or growth as a jailhouse lawyer, from arrest to imprisonment using critical race theory and abolition theory.  While it tells one person’s stories, it is both shaped by those who taught him and the...

Making Bricks Without Straw: Legal Training for Female Jailhouse Lawyers in the Louisiana Penal System

Abstract Overt gender discrimination, and the combined failure of Louisiana’s Department of Public Safety and Corrections (DPSC) and Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women (LCIW) prison officials to provide offender counsel substitutes in prisons for women (OCS-W) the same quality legal education and training as provided for those incarcerated in prisons for men, are violations of the...