S1:E4 - JHODY
On the fourth episode in the inaugural season of the Women Beyond Walls podcast, Sabrina Mahtani is joined in conversation by Jhody Polk, the Founder/Director of the Legal Empowerment and Advocacy Hub (LEAH) and Director of Community Justice at the River Phoenix Center for Peacebuilding in the USA. LEAH is the home of the National Jailhouse Lawyers Initiative and is the first Participatory Defense Hub in the state of Florida.
Jhody, a formerly incarcerated Jailhouse Lawyer and powerful advocate for change, explains why she believes we all need to be more open to learning - and unlearning - in the pursuit of justice for all. Sharing with us some of the barriers facing women both inside prisons and outside in their communities, Jhody powerfully unpacks the reasons she remains hopeful in the face of injustice and asks us all to consider what is "ours to do" in tackling the over-incarceration of women worldwide.
"I'm excited to be on this side, to be able to have gone through that experience and to be able to help support our sisters that are holding up a big part of the criminal justice system and the community while being invisible on the inside.”