Jailhouse Manual Released in New Edition and Spanish Edition

Students at the Columbia Human Rights Law Review are celebrating the newly released sixth edition of A Jailhouse Lawyers Manual (JLM) and the inaugural edition of the publication in Spanish.

The two-volume JLM is produced to assist prisoners and others in negotiating the U.S. legal system. Among the 45 chapters is information on legal rights and procedures, religious freedom in prison, special issues of female prisoners, and immigration law and legal research.

New sections in the sixth edition - often culled from prisoner feedback - include topics such as the special needs of and juvenile, female, homosexual inmates.

Marco Palau ‘05 and Kathy Banuelos ‘05 served as editors of the Spanish publication. Sarah Stewart ‘05 told the New York Law Journal that the magazine staff was also assisted by 20 private practitioners.

The manual was first published in 1978, when the prison population was a fifth of what it is today. The current price is $45 for inmates and $90 for all others. One thousand copies are sold annually.