d'Alchemist
"Legal Empowerment is Abolition"
Learning The Law Transformed My Life
When I was 23 years old, I was sentenced to eight years in the Florida Department of Corrections. I never imagined that I would find personal freedom while in physical prison. The truth is, I had been incarcerated mentally, emotionally, culturally, and spiritually long before I was incarcerated physically. Violent experiences in school and community had already prepared me for the violence of prison.
Although prison was hard, the relationships I built with women—and with the law—forever shaped my life. Prison was the first place I experienced healthy relationships with women, and the first time I was introduced to the law and given access to a law library. Assigned to work as a prison law clerk, also known as a jailhouse lawyer, I began learning, using, and transcribing the law for myself and others. This work helped me build a legal identity and sparked a dream: to become a lawyer, so I could give the law away to as many people as possible.
I realized that had I known the law—and had confidence in using it—I would have never found myself in prison. I could have used the law, instead of violence, to meet my unmet needs. Living as a jailhouse lawyer inside, I discovered that as much as the law can be oppressive, it can also be a tool of liberation. It was only while incarcerated that I learned I had constitutional and human rights. That I had civil rights and rights as a mother, even while incarcerated.
Ironically, being inside was the first time I saw myself as a citizen, and I believed in my power to shape and transform the law. However, I thought the only way to do that was to become a lawyer. But over time I came to understand that legal knowledge itself is power. There was a time when I believed I had to become a lawyer in order to teach and use the law. Now, as a community paralegal, I use my knowledge and confidence in the law to demystify and navigate systems that often seek to deny opportunities to people like me.
Post incarceration, my desire to become a lawyer led me into movements for democracy, abolition, and justice. I helped pass Amendment 4 in Florida, restoring the right to vote to over a million people with felony convictions. I joined national movements like Participatory Defense, launching the first hub in Florida and the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls. I was also hired by the River Phoenix Center for Peacebuilding, where I learned about trauma, restorative justice, conflict resolution, connection and social emotional learning. That was the beginning of my journey into peace.
The following year, I was introduced to the global movement for legal empowerment, SDG 16 and the practice of Participatory Action Research (PAR). Together, legal empowerment, PAR, and community peacebuilding became my three greatest tools for creating a just society. It was then that I found the words for what I had already been living: Legal Empowerment is Abolition!
Through LEAH and the JLI, it is my life’s mission to make sure that all people have access to knowing, using, and shaping the law. I once thought that becoming a lawyer was the only way to share the law. Today, I know that as a community paralegal, my role is just as vital. I use my knowledge and confidence in the law to open doors for others, to challenge systems that exclude us, and to build spaces where our voices matter.
I believe that peace is possible, and that collective justice begins with our personal dreams of justice—for ourselves, our families, our communities, and ultimately for society. I am building a peaceful and just world from the inside out. Abolition of any kind requires many people and many strategies. Legal empowerment is one of many solutions and pathways to freedom, but it is mine to do.
Jhody D. Polk