A Qualitative Report on Defining and Understanding Meaningful Access to the Courts in American Jails

• In Event: Inside Prisons

Abstract

Although the Supreme Court has confirmed in landmark cases (Bounds v. Smith, 1977; Lewis v. Casey, 1996) that incarcerated individuals have the right to access the court, it has never definitively outlined how correctional facilities can preserve this right (Balestrieri & Zicari, 2023). The Court has only broadly mandated that facilities must provide incarcerated individuals with law libraries or alternative legal services (Bounds v. Smith, 1977). Consequently, there is a lack of consensus among legal scholars and correctional institutions on what constitutes meaningful access to the courts and how to offer it. By interviewing a mix of legal scholars and correctional practitioners who work in jail law libraries, I attempt to answer the question: what legal resources are necessary to provide incarcerated individuals with meaningful access to the courts? Preliminary reports from my data reveal that legal scholars and practitioners believe that meaningful access to the courts can only be achieved in correctional institutions that offer law library spaces and employ trained legal staff. However, the specific resources advocated by the interviewees vary, underscoring the necessity for facility-specific approaches in providing meaningful access to the courts.

Author

• Christina Plakas, University of South Carolina