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Expanding legal education access to all New Yorkers — especially those historically excluded

Winner

Jhody Devon Polk

Expanding legal education access to all New Yorkers — especially those historically excluded

Website

jhodypolk.com

Year

2025

Organization

The Jailhouse Lawyers Initiative

Sector

Human Rights

Borough

Queens

Jhody is working to expand legal education access to all New Yorkers — especially those who have been historically excluded.

Jhody Polk’s journey to becoming a leading advocate for legal empowerment began behind bars, where she practiced law as a jailhouse lawyer in Florida’s prison system. Despite never holding a formal law degree, Jhody provided critical legal support to…
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Publication

NPR

'Cheat Code to Life': Jailhouse lawyers help incarcerated people — and themselves, too

Carrie Johnson
When Jhody Polk entered a Florida prison years ago, she noticed something special about the women in the law library. "They felt taller than the rest of us," Polk said. "It was the knowledge that they had, the way they used…
“It was through my experience as a jailhouse lawyer that I truly embodied the legal empowerment cycle.”
“Jhody Polk is living proof that the law need not be an abstraction or a threat; it can be a tool that all of us can wield.⁠”
Vivek Maru
Founder of Namati, which convenes the Grassroots Justice Network

Publication

Ms. Magazine

Through the Jailhouse Lawyer Initiative, Jhody Polk Is Building Legal Empowerment from the Inside Out

Eleanor J. Bader
The Jailhouse Lawyer Initiative (JLI) was founded by Jhody Polk, a formerly incarcerated jailhouse lawyer from Florida. JLI invests in incarcerated justice advocates as a core strategy in ending the cycle of incarceration…

Publication

Prism

A new digital archive makes public the trials and triumphs of jailhouse lawyers

Tamar Sarai
The ‘Flashlights’ archive from Jailhouse Lawyers Initiative features more than 300 letters, poems, interviews, and pieces of artwork from incarcerated legal advocates…
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