In this narrative Essay, the author shares memories and descriptions of her time at Adelanto Detention Center.
May 10, 2021
What You Didn’t Know About Adelanto Immigration Detention Center
10May
May 10, 2021
Challenging Gladiator Fights in the CDCR
Abstract The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) has a long history of placing people in long-term isolation in response to suspected or confirmed gang membership or affiliation. Despite being forced to stop the practice of indefinite solitary confinement, CDCR continued other arguably unconstitutional practices in response to gang activity. At Pleasant Valley State...
May 10, 2021
To Act Like a Democracy
Abstract Today, 5.2 million Americans are kept from voting because of felony disenfranchisement laws. African Americans are disproportionately affected by these laws. There has been a wave of reforms in recent years, restoring the right to vote to formerly disenfranchised persons. This Essay discusses the reasons the franchise should be expanded, both because it leads to lower recidivism rates...
May 10, 2021
Jailhouse Lawyering From the Beginning
Abstract Jailhouse lawyering is a form of resistance against the prison industrial complex that seeks to silence and disappear prisoners. This Essay describes the author’s acts of resistance, or growth as a jailhouse lawyer, from arrest to imprisonment using critical race theory and abolition theory. While it tells one person’s stories, it is both shaped by those who taught him and the...
May 10, 2021
Making Bricks Without Straw: Legal Training for Female Jailhouse Lawyers in the Louisiana Penal System
Abstract Overt gender discrimination, and the combined failure of Louisiana’s Department of Public Safety and Corrections (DPSC) and Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women (LCIW) prison officials to provide offender counsel substitutes in prisons for women (OCS-W) the same quality legal education and training as provided for those incarcerated in prisons for men, are violations of the...
May 10, 2021
An Old Lawyer Learns New Tricks: A Memoir
Abstract In this reflection, James Bottomley shares his experience as a formerly barred attorney who is now incarcerated in a California state prison. Bottomley has practiced as a jailhouse lawyer for himself and other incarcerated people in recent years but is now retired from the practice of law. Introduction When I was in jail, depressed that my next destination was the California state...
August 31, 2020
Law Meets World Introduction
31August
Introduction Much has been written on how the COVID-19 pandemic has brought longstanding structural inequities into sharp relief. Like in all crises, the effects of the pandemic have not been evenly distributed. Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities have been disproportionately harmed by the virus. Low-wage workers—largely workers of color and immigrant workers—are deemed essential yet...
August 31, 2020
Ensuring Equal Access to the Mail-In Ballot Box
Abstract Mail voting has emerged as the top policy solution to voting amid the COVID-19 pandemic. But not all mail voting schemes are created equal. Implemented improperly, vote-by-mail can disproportionately disenfranchise many of the same voters at highest risk of contracting and subsequently dying from the virus. From voter identity verification to language access, jurisdictions...
August 31, 2020
Letter From The Asian/Pacific Islander Law Students Association Regarding Stephen Bainbridge
The following letter from the UCLA School of Law chapter of the Asian/Pacific Islander Law Students Association was sent to UCLA School of Law administrators on April 13, 2020, in response to anti-Asian statements by a professor. This was not an isolated incidence of hateful language in the UCLA Law community. Earlier in the school year, other UCLA Law professors used the n-word in academic...
August 31, 2020
Movement And Crisis: A Social Health Manifesto
Abstract In this Article, we employ the terms Health (as a white supremacist mode of being) and social health to demystify how race and health are mobilized by the state and its representative bodies to shift accountability away from their role in crafting an anti-Black world, contain and quell Black protest, and how Black communities have dreamt and practiced alternative definitions of health...
August 31, 2020
Abolitionist Reforms and the Immigrants' Rights Movement
Abstract This Article discusses the criteria for abolitionist reforms and assesses whether current immigrants’ rights demands move us towards a more transformative agenda, one that questions the legitimacy of the state. The Article argues that calls to invest in immigrant communities and to release immigrants from detention can be radical reforms that move us closer to abolition if they are...
August 31, 2020
Reproducing Equality: How Covid-19 Can Strengthen Abortion Rights
Abstract States hostile to reproductive freedom have weaponized the COVID-19 pandemic to ban abortion in the name of public safety. Relying on heightened power the state typically exercises during an emergency, it can capitalize on public panic to achieve its policy goals. By laying bare the racial inequities of our healthcare systems and the opportunistic banning of abortion by an emergency...
August 31, 2020
Making Unemployment Insurance Work For Working People
Abstract During just the first four months the COVID-19 pandemic, 50 million people applied for unemployment insurance. The COVID-19 economic crisis has exposed a frayed social safety net that simply does not work for working people. In this Article, we describe how the unemployment insurance system punishes working people, rather than supporting them, in times of crisis; excludes many vulnerable...
August 31, 2020
Deliberate Endangerment: Detention Of Noncitizens During The COVID-19 Pandemic
Abstract In the midst of worldwide efforts to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) continues to detain noncitizens in dangerous conditions that create a high risk of infection. This Article explores the dire situation facing detained noncitizens as a result of the government’s decision to imprison tens of thousands of people in civil confinement during an...