Name: Ty David

Social Justice Group: 2021-2022, Mass Incarceration in the U.S.

Date of Fieldwork: February 14, 2022

Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s):Alison Hardy – Prison Law

Type of Fieldwork: Interview

What I did and what I learned about my topic, activism, social justice work or civil and human rights work from this fieldwork?[:: :

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.