Advocacy for Prisoners' Rights: Civil Litigation in the Criminal Justice World
Fall 2013 | Angus Love, Esq. | Management Information Exchange Journal
The long trek from arrest to release from confinement or supervision poses some interesting challenges for the civil and criminal legal organizations that represent indigent persons. More and more individuals are caught up in the ever expanding criminal justice system, especially people of color. Currently there are almost seven million persons or 2.9% of the American population under correctional supervision, including 2.5 million people in prisons. In a nation that houses 25% of the world's prison population, the need for legal assistance is enormous. This rapid expansion of the prison population, ongoing since 1980, is unprecedented in our nation's history. Curiously, the expansion occurred at the same time as and at a similar rate to the expansion in our country's income gap.