Providing on-location legal services to prisoners

This monograph was written in connection with a continuation of funding through the American Bar Association of an experimental on-site prison legal services project. The author, Alan S. Ziegler, a Yale Law School graduate, was the project's Director and Supervising Attorney during the mid 1970's. He explains how the naivete of the original concept that providing civil legal services to prison would facilitate their rehabilitation was at odds with the prisoner's desire that the project use its resources to either shorten their prison time or at least improve their prison conditions. Addressing the prisoners' concerns led to tensions with and obstruction of the project's efforts by the prison administration and guards, both of which felt they had been misled as to the nature of a project that was situated inside its prison walls. The author, as well as detailing the work of the project, also makes suggestions for changes that would make future prisoner legal service projects more effective.