Felon and University of Chicago professor share the stage in speech about felon rights

When Jhody Polk was incarcerated, she said she was set free. 

Polk was recently released from an eight-year prison sentence and is now an advocate for ex-prisoners with the nonprofit National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls.  

“Although I expected to find thugs and criminals, what I found were incredible, strong women,” Polk told an audience at Ustler Hall on Thursday. “They held up the mirror for me to see who I really was, and for the first time, I was free to be me.”  

Polk, alongside Reuben Miller, an assistant professor at the University of Chicago, spoke to about 75 people on improving the re-entry of felons into society. 

Polk and Miller spoke as part of UF Intersections, which was funded by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, said Katheryn Russell-Brown, a member of UF Intersections. She said she did not immediately know how much the event cost.

Russell-Brown said voter disenfranchisement is important with the upcoming election.

“This is an important moment in Florida history,” Russell-Brown said. “Certainly a time of critical inquiry.” 

Miller, the author of “Halfway Home: Race, Punishment and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration,” said felons are still imprisoned by the law, which contradicts the democracy the country was founded on.

“The point of the work I am doing is to help us push past this scarlet letter that someone carries with them for life when they receive that sentence,” Miller said. 

 

Jhody Polk shares her story of incarceration