Last Friday, February 11, our Social Justice group had the chance to speak with Jacob Hutt. A legal aid attorney that works in the Prison Law organization, located in California. Jacob went to Harvard College and NYU, graduating with an impressive magna cum laude. He was also a Fulbright Research Fellow in Israel/Palestine. Jacob joined Prison Law Office in early 2020. He has since worked on cases having to do with disabilities in prison and the well known Chavez v. County of Santa Clara that went to the Supreme Court.

During our interview, we talked about the mental and medical health issues that prisoners face in American jails. We talked a little more specifically about cases of police brutality and systemic racism factor in the prisons where people who are physically handicapped or are blind need special attention. A case that is common for him is where an inmate needs something to help them physically like a wheel chair, or a prosthetic leg. One case that broke my heart when he is working on is a situation where an old blind man was brutally beaten by a guard as a result of his race. This guard took advantage of him and the man wants justice.

Personally, this made me very upset. Under no circumstances should law enforcer take advantage of someones physical problem and use it against them. I believe the case is ongoing and I hope for best for the man. The sad truth is that issues like this and many others happen daily in prisons and people get away with it too. I hope that I can make a change to this recurring problem in America.

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On Friday, February 11, my group and I had the wonderful opportunity to talk to Alison Hardy who works at the Prison Law Organization. This organization is located in California where most of their work happens. Alison joined the organization in 1988, advocating for HIV and AIDS prisoners to get the healthcare they needed while inside jail. Shortly after, she went to Oregon and set up a healthcare rights project there. When she got back to California, she primarily works on health issues in prisons. Famous cases she worked on were Plata v. Newsom and Hall v. County of Fresno which were brought to the Supreme Court.

During the interview, Alison told us about the sorts of cases she works on. She explained that many prisons are overcrowded with the lack of funding needed to care for all the prisoners. One of the cases she worked on, the prison held 175,000 inmates while the prison could only contain around 100,000. Overcrowding can be very dangerous and lead to violence, lack of resources such as food, medication, overstocked jail cells, and more. They won the case and the number of inmates decreased by more than 75 thousand! She also spoke about the issues with mental health treatment. Inmates who are suicidal and seem like they are harmful to themselves and others are put into solitary confinement which is an isolated 8 by 6 foot cement box without any light. This is an extremely inhumane and cruel way of fixing the problem and only fixes the short term issue. Thankfully, many prisons do have therapy programs in America but this only solves the issue for one out of many.

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On Friday, February 4, our group had the amazing opportunity to talk to Sophia Henager who is a Law Fellow for the Equal Justice Initiative. EJI is an incredible organization that challenges racial and economic injustice in America, helps educate people on mass incarceration, and supports people with unjust punishments. Sophia was generous to accept a 45 minute, unrecorded interview over Google meet where she answered many of our concerning questions relating to our topic. A few things we learned about were, how mass incarceration started in America, the racial targeting and injustice people of color deal with in America, under budgeting of U.S. prisons, and the issues of misdiagnosing mental health. We are very lucky that we got the chance to meet Sophia and are grateful for the opportunity.

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