Joseph "Joey" Sanchez, currently incarcerated at Clinton Correctional Facility, is a legal educator, published essayist, and criminal justice reform advocate. His work, covering legal advocacy, policy, journalism, and curriculum development, has appeared in outlets like the New York Times and the Prison Journalism Project. Joey's legal expertise began in the prison law library, where he became a trusted resource for others, as detailed in his October 2023 article, "Better Call Joey: The Life of a Jailhouse Lawyer." He also published an Op-Ed in the Albany Times Union on the Challenging Wrongful Convictions Acts. Joey has experience with Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) litigation to advocate for others and uses his deep legal knowledge to support New York's Second Look legislation, allowing judges to revisit long sentences based on rehabilitation.
Joey has formalized the skills he developed in practice by earning a 40-Hour Legal Research Certificate through NYSDOCCS and completing the Inmate Program Associate (I.P.A.) training, earning recognition for his demonstration of genuine interest and a commitment to helping others. Joey holds two Associate's degrees: one in Liberal Arts and Humanities from SUNY Sullivan (2023) and one in Construction Management from Ashworth College (2019). He is one course away from completing a Bachelor's degree in Social Science from St. Thomas Aquinas College, which was interrupted by program suspension. In addition to his degrees, Joey completed a Creative Non-Fiction Writer's Workshop in 2024, further developing the narrative and analytical voice that has distinguished his public writing.
Joey's vision for legal literacy is expansive and historically grounded. He understands how legislative shifts have erected barriers between incarcerated people and their rights. His goal is to raise the collective consciousness around these barriers, identifying the implicit and explicit obstacles to accessing legal resources and finding effective, community-centered solutions. He has worked with Ithaka and mainstream editors to develop his writing, and he aspires to help create a transportable legal literacy curriculum that other organizations can adopt to give incarcerated leaders a meaningful voice in law and policy.