Jail Law Libraries, Part I

In 1977, in a case arising out of North Carolina, the Supreme Court of the United States held that “the fundamental constitutional right of access to the courts requires prison authorities . . . to provid[e] prisoners with adequate law libraries or adequate assistance from persons trained in the law.” Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 817, 828 (1977). After the Bounds decision the North Carolina Department of Correction initially met its obligation to provide legal assistance through law libraries. But inmate law libraries raise a number of problems: it is difficult and expensive to maintain an up-to-date collection; security concerns make it hard to give some inmates adequate time in the library; and not every inmate is literate or proficient in English. With these concerns in mind, DOC decided in 1989 to adopt the other approach the Court approved in Bounds—providing prisoners with “adequate assistance from persons trained in the law.” The department contracted with North Carolina Prisoner Legal Services (NCPLS), a non-profit public service law firm in Raleigh, to serve inmates’ legal needs. NCPLS continues to serve that function, processing thousands of files annually. Jail administrators sometimes ask me whether and to what extent Bounds applies to them. Do they, like prisons, need to provide inmates with access to legal materials or to persons trained in the law? The administrative regulations applicable to jails say that a jail’s operations manual must include a written policy addressing “access to legal assistance or legal materials,” but the rules don’t say anything about [...]