JAILHOUSE LAWYERS:
PRISONERS DEFENDING PRISONERS V THE USA
“This is the story of law learned, not in the ivory towers of multi-billion-dollar endowed universities [but] in the bowels of the slave-ship, in the hidden, dank dungeons of America – the Prisonhouse of Nations.
“It is law learned in a stew of bitterness, under the constant threat of violence, in places where millions of people live, but millions of others wish to ignore or forget.
“It is law written with stubs of pencils, or with four-inch-long rubberized flex-pens, with grit, glimmerings of brilliance, and with clear knowledge that retaliation is right outside the cell door.
“It is a different perspective on the law, written from the bottom, with a faint hope that a right may be wronged, an injustice redressed.
“It is Hard Law.”
Foreword by Angela Y. Davis
Introduction to UK edition by
Selma James
To be published July 2010
by Crossroads Books £9.99.
An outstanding book — Ian Macdonald QC
Make way for inside voices. Everybody should read it — Flo Krause, barrister
A champion of law in an institution that is lawless. This book should be distributed throughout the prisons — Benjamin Zephaniah, poet, ex-prisoner
Mumia & the American experience illuminate what is possible for jailhouse lawyers in Britain — Ben Gunn, jailhouse lawyer
A must read for prisoners and prison reform groups — John Hirst, former jailhouse lawyer
In the grand tradition of prison writing — Frances Crook, Howard League for Penal Reform
Stories of gallant prisoners who do battle with the authorities, challenging the abuse of their peers — Clive Stafford Smith, Founder of Reprieve
A merciless critique of traditional lawyers. An international learning tool — Richard Small, Attorney, Jamaica
A brilliant analysis of the nature of law and the role of lawyers as instruments of injustice — Lord Anthony Gifford QC, UK Barrister and Attorney, Jamaica
Tells the truth about death row and its distinguished inhabitants — Legal Action for Women
The criminal justice system brought to bear on someone who is African American, articulate, and involved in change — Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking
A story never before told — J. Patrick O'Connor, author of The framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal
Mumia Abu-Jamal has once more offered us new ways of thinking about law, democracy, and power — Angela Y. Davis, from the Foreword
A crucial aspect of the growing movement against the prison-industrial complex — Selma James, from the Introduction to the UK Edition
Mumia Abu-Jamal, award winning journalist and former Black Panther, was convicted in 1982 of killing a policeman in a trial drenched in racism. He has spent most of his 28 years in prison on Pennsylvania’s death row. In 2008, a crucial appeal on the grounds of racism in jury selection was rejected. In January 2010 progress on his case was again blocked by the Supreme Court which sent a decision on the death penalty back to the lower courts. People all over the world have campaigned for his conviction to be overturned.
Mumia – as millions know him -- presents the moving struggles and reflections of fellow prisoners who, denied justice, have taken the legal process into their own hands. Jailhouse lawyers represent themselves and others inside, sometimes winning -- even in some cases winning their freedom -- but always resisting, learning, inspiring others to win.
Mumia’s latest book, his sixth, is perhaps his most important. The prison population in the US has exploded so that now one in every 99 people in the United States, and one in every nine Black men between the ages of twenty and 34, is in prison. The movement against prisons and against the death penalty has also grown. Jailhouse Lawyers prises open the clanging steel doors to reveal the hidden power of the anti-prison movement: individual women and men inside, using the law as their weapon.
Praise for Jailhouse Lawyers:
Make way for inside voices, make way for jailhouse lawyers. Even those of us who have daily contact with prisoners and prisons will never understand the full extent of the dehumanising process that takes place behind those walls. The daily abuses of power. The daily humiliations. The powerlessness to make one's voice heard and believed. This book brings us closer to this understanding. Everybody should read it. — Flo Krause, barrister working with UK jailhouse lawyers
“When you find someone who, like Mumia, makes it his business to learn the law and put their finger on the often blatant dishonesty and bias of the courts and judges, then you have an outstanding text book. This is such a book. — Ian Macdonald QC
Jailhouse Lawyers is not a collection of legal anecdotes, a compendium of courtroom gloating, but a rare glimpse into the motives and struggles of the individual prisoners who refuse to surrender to the State which is attempting to crush them.
Shorn of worldly honours and bereft of any social status, and squeezing the most benefit from the most meagre resources jailhouse lawyers are a new breed of legal gladiators. They are an increasing force in changing the penal landscape of the nation that incarcerates more people than any other.
Mumia and the American experience illuminate what is possible for jailhouse lawyers in Britain, who are also turning to the law to defend themselves against the increasingly oppressive security paradigm.
They do so knowing the personal risks and with little support, least of all from groups which dress themselves in the clothing of prison reform, accept honours and silver; and are enamoured with gracing the courtyards of power and publicity.
Jailhouse lawyers foment hope for change, which everywhere rests in the hands of prisoners. — Ben Gunn, jailhouse lawyer, in prison for 30 years
Jailhouse Lawyers is a must read for prisoners generally, and jailhouse lawyers in particular. Prison reform groups should also take the time to read it, as should any lawyer engaged in criminal and prison law. I still recall receiving a letter from a mother who said the courts refused her son’s appeal. My advice led to a second appeal, and his conviction for murdering a police sergeant was quashed. The government may cut legal aid to prevent qualified lawyers from representing prisoners. But nothing will stop jailhouse lawyers taking on other prisoners’ cases for free. — John Hirst, former jailhouse lawyer
This book tells of a courageous struggle for individual and collective justice and continues in the grand tradition of prison writing, the call from the cell to all of us outside to question everything about the criminal justice system, here and in the United States. — Frances Crook, Howard League for Penal Reform
Sometimes when I have lost a case I tell a client that ‘they cannot imprison your mind.’ -- easy for a lawyer to say, but incredibly difficult to live it in a degrading penal institution. Mumia Abu-Jamal’s mind and spirit have remained free through nearly thirty years of unjust imprisonment. In this book he writes of the achievement of men and women who through their legal ingenuity have transformed the lives of thousands. All this in the context of a brilliant analysis of the nature of law and the role of lawyers as instruments of injustice in the United States. Human rights lawyers everywhere can learn from this book. — Lord Anthony Gifford QC, UK Barrister and Jamaican Attorney
The first importance of Jailhouse Lawyers is that it records, reviews and analyses the extremely important creative, innovative political work that has been ongoing for many years in the United States, but which had never been documented before.
It is a merciless critique of the shortcomings of traditional lawyers. It can now become an international learning tool of particular importance in the Caribbean. — Richard Small, civil rights attorney, Jamaica
Jailhouse Lawyers is a must-read for everyone connected in any fashion to the criminal justice system. The book explores the ongoing legal attack by underground lawyers on an unfair legal system. — Tony Serra, US civil rights attorney
They just cannot stop Mumia. He is passionate and relentless, intellectual and revolutionary. This brother is a champion of law in an institution that is lawless. He has written another book that shall go down in history.
We don’t have the death penalty in Britain but we do have prisoners whose lives are stolen. This book should be distributed throughout the prisons. — Benjamin Zephaniah, ex-prisoner, poet
These lives of resistance and what they accomplish inside are absent from almost every account of prisons, official and unofficial. Who would know that in Yarl’s Wood Removal Centre, a prison in all but name, African women who have survived rape and genocide are organising legal training and submitting judicial reviews to stop deportations?
Most prison reformers don’t seem to have noticed, and certainly haven’t taken their lead from, this prison reform movement. Spelling out what prisoners make happen undermines the cult of professionalism and the mystique of the superior professional mind.
This book fortifies those of us in Europe against any future calls for the death penalty to be reinstated by telling the truth about death row and its distinguished inhabitants. — Legal Action for Women
US prisoners serving a sentence of life without the possibility of parole have no right to legal aid to challenge his conviction. More often than not, he must rely on a ‘jailhouse lawyer’, a fellow prisoner. Jailhouse Lawyers tells us the stories of these gallant prisoners who do battle with the authorities, challenging the abuse of their peers, often provoking recriminations from the guards they sue. This book helps to highlight the truth. — Clive Stafford Smith, Founder of Reprieve
Mumia is a dramatic example of how the criminal justice system can be brought to bear on someone who is African American, articulate, and involved in change in society. The system is threatened by someone like Mumia. A voice as strong and as truthful as his—the repression against him is intensified. — Sister Helen Prejean, author Dead Man Walking
Mumia Abu-Jamal's 28 years on death row for a murder he did not commit would have turned almost anyone else into an embittered, defeated man. Instead, he has remained what he always was, "the voice of the voiceless," Jailhouse Lawyers opens a tightly shut door into the operations of the U.S. penal system by chronicling the exploits of dozens of jailhouse lawyers – both men and women. Their story is a story never before told. — J. Patrick O'Connor, author of “The framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal”
Abu-Jamal reminds the reader of the more than two million Americans behind bars in similar situations to himself, and that those in the free world have a responsibility to those trapped 'in the bowels of the slave ship, in the hidden dank dungeons of America.' — Jaisal Noor, The Indypendent
The first of its kind, Mumia has written a book that is revolutionary because it breaks new ground, enlightening us about the courageous, unorthodox resistance to the system (and its inherent injustices) posed by jailhouse lawyers. — Kiilu Nyasha, ZNet
Mumia Abu-Jamal has once more enlightened us, he has once more offered us new ways of thinking about law, democracy, and power. He allows us to reflect upon the fact that transformational possibilities often emerge where we least expect them. — Angela Y. Davis, from the Foreword
Jailhouse Lawyers enables the public to glimpse a crucial aspect of the growing movement against the prison-industrial complex hidden by high walls and steel doors, one which Mumia knows inside out.
Mumia uncovers what extraordinary lives of resistance some prisoners have created from need, imagination, and determination. Drawing on his experience, compassion, and extensive correspondence, he sketches portraits of great jailhouse lawyers focussed on beating justice out of the system. Often spurred by the need to repair the damage to their own cases inflicted by lazy and uncaring “street lawyers,” Mumia describes how jailhouse lawyers learn the law, the precedents, the jargon, and mount an often formidable legal defense. In the process they carve out a life for themselves, a victory in itself. — Selma James, from the Introduction to the UK Edition
For more information contact: Crossroads Books booksvideos@crossroadswomen.net, Tel: 020 7428 2496
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