But for the rarest of exceptions, the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) and a number of corresponding state statutes require people inside to exhaust administrative remedies prior to initiating court action against prison entities. Exhausting remedies requires prisoners to use grievance forms over which prison officials almost always exercise exclusive control. It also requires prison officials to accept completed grievance forms from prisoners and to acknowledge receipt of those materials by entering them into prison grievance record-keeping systems. PLAN routinely receives corroborated reports of prison officials’ withholding grievance forms from prisoners, systematically refusing to acknowledge receipt of completed forms, and rejecting grievances due to so-called, “technical deficiencies.” The willful refusal of some prison officials to afford people inside access to the grievance forms and procedures they need to exhaust remedies can effectively obstruct prisoners’ access to the courts.

Access to prison law libraries remains limited in many locations following long periods of closure during the COVID-19 pandemic. Incarcerated individuals in many jurisdictions report that facility law libraries continue to operate limited opening hours. Individuals designated to segregated housing units have only infrequent access to law libraries. In many cases, prisoners may have no direct access at all, instead being relegated to requesting law library materials from prison officers. In addition to depriving incarcerated individuals of the opportunity to search complete collections of legal resource materials, such indirect law library access also compels incarcerated individuals to disclose privileged details of their sensitive legal matters to state officials who may be parties adverse in interest. Prison agencies that have instituted use of computer tablets sometimes make these tablets available only to prisoners who can afford to pay for them, with indigent individuals restricted to access at kiosks during limited hours. As the vast majority of incarcerated litigants lack representation of counsel and have no alternative but to represent themselves pro se in civil proceedings, when prison officials deprive prisoners of adequate access to prison law libraries, they effectively deprive people inside of meaningful recourse to contest their conditions of confinement. 

PLAN convenes diverse legal response teams to challenge reportedly unconstitutional conditions of confinement in order to improve conditions for incarcerated people, and to reform prison practices and the policies and law that govern them. In addition to impact litigation that is prosecuted by PLAN legal response teams, PLAN’s unique legal advocacy model includes extrajudicial (out-of-court) approaches that complement and support impact litigation strategies, by challenging carceral practices and procedures that are unlawful or normatively should be.