The Supporting Prisoners’ Families Scholarship

Brisley Martinez

Brisley’s well-written essay describes the terror and helplessness she and her family felt when her brother was sent to jail. Her essay masterfully encapsulates how the experience affected her and set her on the lifepath of becoming a legal professional to help those like her family and brother navigate the criminal justice system. We wish Brisley the best of luck in her future endeavors and can’t wait to watch her succeed.

Read Brisley’s Essay:

I was 14-years-old when my brother was incarcerated. I vividly remember seeing my brother shackled from his hands and feet, the weekly jail visitations behind glass windows, and the countless times I wondered when I would be able to hug him again. When the district attorney said, “25-to-life,” every inch of my body felt shattered. I felt powerless at the hands of a system that just saw another Brown body to cage. Outside of court, my low-income family struggled to fundraise ten thousand dollars to afford a private criminal defense attorney. Unfortunately, the attorney capitalized on our fear and did little to nothing for four years. Even after my parents sold our cars and worked double-overtime shifts, my family of five had to move to a small two-bedroom trailer to afford rent. When we could no longer make ends meet, my brother’s case went to a public defender. Despite the bad reputations public defenders face, it was the first time I witnessed zealous advocacy– my brother was sentenced to 9 years in prison. This experience inspired me to turn this tragedy into my power and to pursue a career in public defense advocacy. Despite my commitment to advocate for others like my brother, I quickly realized the seemingly insurmountable hurdles I would have to face to achieve this goal. As a Latina from a low-income family and a first-generation college and law student, my path has been anything but easy. My family never recovered from the financial loss of my brother’s case. During college, my brother was serving his prison sentence twenty minutes from the university I attended. However, the rest of my family lived six hours away and did not have the financial means to visit him. Thus, I took the responsibility of visiting him every weekend, putting money in his commissary, and giving my mother money so my brother could call her weekly. Still, I always felt like my experience in university spaces lacked representation and the adequate resources needed to serve the system impacted students like myself. Now in law school, I continue to struggle financially as someone who has committed their career to public defense. Further, in law school there has been far less representation for students who have loved ones incarcerated or who have direct experience with the criminal legal system. While I have created advocacy efforts and community spaces to foster representation, there is still a need for resources, mentorship opportunities, and scholarship opportunities like this one given the unique barriers and expertise students like myself bring to the law school/profession. Still, I have grounded myself by always remembering what brought me to law school in the first place. As I finish my last semester of law school and soon face the CA Bar exam, this scholarship would be critical to funding my bar-prep. Further, this scholarship would bring me one step closer to fulfilling my long-held vision for addressing mass incarceration, racial injustice, and criminalization of poverty as a public defender