Wash staffBy Maria Tedesco
In Washington, D.C., civic engagement can be as simple as voting, attending hearings or talking to an advisory neighborhood commissioner. But to inmates in the D.C. jail, voicing their political concerns is no easy task.
Some incarcerated individuals, and advocates on their behalf, said they have been denied the opportunity to testify in front of the D.C. City Council on bills ranging from better food while in custody to better health care for those giving birth in the jail — meaning those impacted the most by some policies haven’t been able to weigh in.
The impact, according to some advocates, goes beyond individual bills.
Terrell Peters, formerly incarcerated in the city, is now an advocate for D.C. Justice Labs, an organization that advocates for changes to the criminal legal system. He describes civic engagement as a way to break through the social isolationism of prison.
“When prisoners participate more civically, that creates a social bond that connects them with humanity and makes them feel that they are part of something and that is needed more than anything inside of a prison,” Peters said.
But in some cases, the D.C. Department of Corrections has not allowed inmates to do so, citing a lack of technology and staffing issues in the D.C. jail, advocates and inmates said. The corrections department declined to comment after multiple written requests.
Residents have the right to vote in the District even in jail or prison; it’s the law, one of only three of its kind (the others are in Maine and Vermont). Testifying in front of the City Council typically is as simple as calling the point of contact for the public hearing they wish to testify at. In the past, inmates testified before the council through written statements – but for inmates and advocates, that was not enough.
The FRESH Starts Act, which was introduced by Councilwoman Brooke Pinto in 2023, guarantees D.C. jail inmates’ access to food that meets basic nutritional standards.
Advocates who worked on the bill wanted inmates to have a say in the legislative process because it impacts their everyday life. Stacey Litner, who has worked as a non-litigation advocate for the Washington Lawyer’s Committee for over 15 years, said 60 organizations signed a letter asking the corrections department to allow inmates to testify over Zoom or in person.
But the D.C. Department of Corrections cited many reasons why it could not make the request happen.
“Their responses have been very vague and in terms of security issues, staffing, limited internet access ,” Litner said. “We have written to ask for much more detailed information about why these are barriers.”
Caitlin Holbrook, a second-year law student at Georgetown University, said she and her classmates created Abolition Advocacy, a student-led group that helps integrate abolition into the law school curriculum and pairs students with law firms that focus on abolition.
One project her organization has taken on is helping inmates testify — over Zoom or in person — about laws that impact them. Holbrook said testifying is one step closer to abolition.
“The knowledge of what it feels like to eat inside the D.C. jails can really only be spoken about by people who eat in the D.C. jails,” Holbrook said. “And so there was a big death of information and expertise on that bill to inform it to be most successful.”
She added, “you don’t lose your First Amendment right to participate in legislative hearings and I think we all suffer when we don’t hear from people who have direct expertise.”
Holbrook said she believes the corrections department has not allowed inmates to testify because they are worried about pushback from inmates.
“Even if they were doing everything by the book, being incarcerated in itself is a very horrible, horrific experience,” Holbrook said. “I can’t imagine that there would be a positive thing to be said about it.”
Shameka Hayes is an inmate in the D.C jail and an advisory neighborhood commissioner for ANC 7F in Ward 7. She’s the city’s third-ever incarcerated elected official.
“The stuff that they say can’t be done because of staffing issues, it’s bullcrap,” Hayes said. “It’s really bullcrap because we have the means. These are things that you all are doing already. We have the technology. So what’s the problem?”
Hayes said legal and personal visits are usually done over Zoom. She had to teach herself how to use the platform for that purpose.
In October 2024, Councilwoman Christina Henderson proposed a bill to improve the safety and support of those who are giving birth in jail by allowing loved ones to be in attendance at the birth.
Two imprisoned pregnant women were interested in testifying about the bill in front of the council. To make it happen, the advocacy groups wrote another letter to the corrections department asking them to allow the women to testify. In response, they said, the corrections department said Hayes is meant to be the legislative voice for the inmates and she could testify on behalf of the two pregnant women.
Though the corrections department presented this alternative, Hayes said the proper paperwork was never put in place allow her to testify. Hayes said paperwork needs to be filled out for inmates to leave their cell and go to an area where they can access the technology to testify. Hayes said she found out through her lawyer that the proper paperwork was never filled out by the corrections department. On top of that, Hayes said she was not given what the pregnant women wanted to say.
“So y’all are promising that I can do these things, but I wasn’t even set up with movement to go testify and I didn’t have what they needed me to say,” Hayes said. “So it’s just like, what are we supposed to do?”
Unkept promises by the corrections department have also seeped into voting in the jail, Hayes and other advocates said.
As of October 2024, there had been no town halls or information sessions on local candidates for the 2024 election, and information on campaigns, including Hayes’ reelection campaign, weren’t posted in the jail.
“I’m big on education,” Hayes said. “We vote tomorrow and Wednesday and wrote statements over a month ago. They just took pictures for us last Thursday and said they were gonna put them up by the end of that day and still nothing.”
Hayes said that 160 inmates have to share one TV to watch the news.
Hayes retained her ANC seat. And on Jan. 16, she gave a swearing-in address in front of small group of D.C. jail residents, Department of Corrections officials, elected officials, and D.C. government employees, according to The Washington Informer.
In the 2020 presidential election, 22% of 1,483 inmates voted in the D.C. jail.
Those incarcerated in the District are housed in both the BOP and D.C. jail, depending on the type of crime. BOP inmates are located in facilities throughout the U.S., while D.C. jail inmates are spread across four facilities in the District depending on gender and crime type. In the federal Bureau of Prisons, 8% of 3,221 inmates voted.
In the June 2022 primary, ballots that were supposed to go to the BOP went to the corrections department instead, according to a progress report from the corrections department on voting in 2023.
Inmates in the BOP can be housed as far as 500 miles away from the District, according to the D.C. Policy Center. The only District related support system these inmates have is through organizations such as Free Minds.
The Free Minds book club is an organization that connects those who are incarcerated in the BOP with tools to build writing skills. They included information about voting in their magazine, which only members of the organization have access to. They featured candidate information in a recent edition.
“We have members that are from D.C, but they are, you know, all over the country, and there’s not a lot of organizations that can track that many D.C. residents throughout the country,” said Aneka Nelson, prison book club manager for Free Minds.
Litner, who also works on voting issues for the BOP, said they refused to post candidate material, because they had not received responses from every candidate.
Litner said advocates’ next steps for getting inmates to testify are to go directly to the council.
“I think our next steps are to try to start meeting with council members to hopefully push this forward,” Litner said.
In his role as an advocate, Peters said he does a little bit of everything. However, he said his “whole purpose” is to get back into the jail to educate more inmates on civics. He wants to develop a civics curriculum for inmates.
“By doing that, you’re creating a community of more people who are more knowledgeable, and that knowledge begins to spread,” Peters said. “And you spread it one person at a time.”
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