Prisons as Slavery
JESSIE - Your best sources for this part are:
MOLLIE - have a proper look at the thirteenth amendment - it did NOT end slavery - just moved it from private individuals owning the slaves to the states owning the slaves. There are quite a few links in the history section below that trace this history. for more detailed info look at New American Slavery (in the further details section) which has loads of historical details. depending on where you're going with your assignment, you might also want to look at the Slavery page on this site.
- the shape of slavery interactive map
- the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments
- an overview of the Jim Crow laws
- the articles in the starting out section
- Angola for life documentary
- the marshal project (primary sources about living in a prison)
- the statistics in the Prison policy initiative link (to show how, like the original slavery situations, the prisons situation is especially oriented toward black Americans)
- In your concludion you might consider this quote:
- Fitting-in: How Formerly Incarcerated New York City Black Men Define Success Post-Prison is a sociology study of men integrating in to the community after 3 years of prison. It found that "The inability to gain access to and participate within the larger society ...make more difficult fitting-in for formerly incarcerated Black men. These generally include voter disenfranchisement, the denial of social benefits, employment barriers, being denied access to higher education, and in some instances access to public housing among others." These kinds of problems were all intended to end with the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. It would be interesting to compare this list to the list of difficulties for black men during the operation of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and after official slavery ended up till or including the introduction of the Jim Crow Laws.
MOLLIE - have a proper look at the thirteenth amendment - it did NOT end slavery - just moved it from private individuals owning the slaves to the states owning the slaves. There are quite a few links in the history section below that trace this history. for more detailed info look at New American Slavery (in the further details section) which has loads of historical details. depending on where you're going with your assignment, you might also want to look at the Slavery page on this site.
Starting Points
First, some shocking statistics:
"The criminal justice system is perhaps the clearest example of structural racism in the United States. The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, and the overwhelming burden of contact with the system has fallen on communities of color, especially African Americans. African American adults are five times more likely to be imprisoned than white Americans. According to data detailed in this issue brief, African Americans are twice as likely as their white counterparts to have a family member imprisoned at some point during their childhood. With overall incarceration rates more than 500 percent higher than they were forty years ago, black Millennials and post-Millennials are at greater risk of contact with the system than any previous generation. In fact, a new CAP analysis finds that 1 in 4 black Millennials had an incarcerated loved one before they even turned 18. For those born in the early 1990s, the rate is almost 1 in 3. " (Source: Mass Incarceration, Stress and Infant Mortality)
Some good starting points to explore this issue include:
End Slavery Now has a useful Timeline of Events affecting Slavery in the USA.
For a great visual of this topic, try the interactive map, The Shape of Slavery, which allows you to compare the scope of slavery during the C19th with prison populations during the C21st. If you click on "Black populations only", the contemporary maps tell a shocking story about race. Scroll down the side for a paragraph explaining each map.
"The criminal justice system is perhaps the clearest example of structural racism in the United States. The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, and the overwhelming burden of contact with the system has fallen on communities of color, especially African Americans. African American adults are five times more likely to be imprisoned than white Americans. According to data detailed in this issue brief, African Americans are twice as likely as their white counterparts to have a family member imprisoned at some point during their childhood. With overall incarceration rates more than 500 percent higher than they were forty years ago, black Millennials and post-Millennials are at greater risk of contact with the system than any previous generation. In fact, a new CAP analysis finds that 1 in 4 black Millennials had an incarcerated loved one before they even turned 18. For those born in the early 1990s, the rate is almost 1 in 3. " (Source: Mass Incarceration, Stress and Infant Mortality)
Some good starting points to explore this issue include:
- I've been sent to solitary for speaking out (Kevin Rashid Johnson's overview of the situation in The Guardian) PRIMARY SOURCE
- Slavery in the US Prison System (Al Jazeera editorial explains how the current system developed after the US Civil War, includes some current economic statistics)
- Incarcerated Workers Organising Committee (the organisation that initiated the strike)
End Slavery Now has a useful Timeline of Events affecting Slavery in the USA.
For a great visual of this topic, try the interactive map, The Shape of Slavery, which allows you to compare the scope of slavery during the C19th with prison populations during the C21st. If you click on "Black populations only", the contemporary maps tell a shocking story about race. Scroll down the side for a paragraph explaining each map.
Historical Perspectives
C21st Slavery in the USA has been well explored in the media since the 2018 prison strikes in the USA. "Prisoners are a uniquely vulnerable workforce," David Fathi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) National Prison Project, told the BBC. They are not protected by occupational health and safety laws that protect all other workers. If they're injured or killed on the job, in most states they're not protected by workers' compensation. So this creates a situation where the usual checks on employer exploitation and abuse simply don't operate....Given the power differential between prisoners and those who confine them, there is very little in prison that is truly voluntary..." But are they slaves? You will have to make up your own mind.
It is important to realise that the Thirteenth Amendment to the American Constitution, did not actually make slavery illegal - it just transferred the slavery to the justice system, a loophole which was exploited until 1983: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction” . However, other amendments did attempt to create equality between Black and White Americans: The Fourteenth Amendment promised citizenship and legal equality and The Fifteenth Amendment promised voting rights for Black men. Unfortunately, the states found it very easy to pass further laws (collectively called Jim Crow Laws) that restricted the basic rights of African-Americans, and prevented them voting or standing for office from the 1880s onward.
Many African Americans opposed and resisted these laws, ending up in court, in prison and even lynched. If you'd like to explore an'own-voices' perspective on the Jim Crow laws, have a look at these free archives of Black Newspapers or the Black Press Research Collective. The Chicago Defender (1902-1985) is going online soon, but for now you'll need to contact the library to get access to these archives.
For 'own voices' accounts of slavery and the civil war, try earlier newspapers and memoirs. Here is a 1855 reply (from ) to the common assertion that “Slaves are better fed, clothed and treated, and more kindly cared for in old age, than the majority of Northern laborers.” Papers you can easily find online include:
Angola for Life is a documentary about life on Angola, a plantation prison in Louisiana which represents the prison as a rehabilitation facility. Watch the documentary, but also read the critique that raises questions about a system that involves unpaid, mostly-Black men bent over in the same fields their ancestors may once have worked.
It is important to realise that the Thirteenth Amendment to the American Constitution, did not actually make slavery illegal - it just transferred the slavery to the justice system, a loophole which was exploited until 1983: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction” . However, other amendments did attempt to create equality between Black and White Americans: The Fourteenth Amendment promised citizenship and legal equality and The Fifteenth Amendment promised voting rights for Black men. Unfortunately, the states found it very easy to pass further laws (collectively called Jim Crow Laws) that restricted the basic rights of African-Americans, and prevented them voting or standing for office from the 1880s onward.
Many African Americans opposed and resisted these laws, ending up in court, in prison and even lynched. If you'd like to explore an'own-voices' perspective on the Jim Crow laws, have a look at these free archives of Black Newspapers or the Black Press Research Collective. The Chicago Defender (1902-1985) is going online soon, but for now you'll need to contact the library to get access to these archives.
For 'own voices' accounts of slavery and the civil war, try earlier newspapers and memoirs. Here is a 1855 reply (from ) to the common assertion that “Slaves are better fed, clothed and treated, and more kindly cared for in old age, than the majority of Northern laborers.” Papers you can easily find online include:
- The Freedom Journal (1827-29 - Pre-Civil War)
- Frederick Douglas' Paper,/The North Star (1851-1863, / 1857-1851 - concurrent with the war)
- Twelve Years a Slave (memoir of a slave)
- Scenes from the Life of Harriet Tubman (memoir of a slave)
Angola for Life is a documentary about life on Angola, a plantation prison in Louisiana which represents the prison as a rehabilitation facility. Watch the documentary, but also read the critique that raises questions about a system that involves unpaid, mostly-Black men bent over in the same fields their ancestors may once have worked.
Inside a US Prison
The prison in the image above is the notorious Angola Prison which was famous as the most violent prison in the USA. Despite reforms (especially with regard to religious education and work skills), workers remain an unpaid labour force both within the prison system and as agricultural labourers and industry trainees. The following articles will give you a clearer picture of life in US prisons.
If you're using this page for your PIP, you might also want to read The American Prison in Historical Perspective and Prison Power: How the prison system influenced the movement for black liberation.
- The Prison Policy Initiative lists damning statistics about the prevalence of racism in Us prisons, with links to individual reports.
- The Marshal Project gives voice to prisoners and prison workers, including this page of comments about institutionalised racism.
- American Males in Prison: Are they doing time or is time doing them? discusses the psychological impact of being in prison.
- Black women's Prison Narratives and the Intersection of Race Gender and Sexuality uses feminist and other theories to analyse female experiences in the prison system. It may be useful as an example of theoretical framing for PIP projects on these issues.
- What's hidden behind the walls of American Prisons? highlights the role of transparency in protecting the rights of prisoners - Us prisons are amongst the least transparent prisons in the world.
If you're using this page for your PIP, you might also want to read The American Prison in Historical Perspective and Prison Power: How the prison system influenced the movement for black liberation.
Further Details
- Many people trace the escalating prison issues to Nixon's War on Drugs which targeted poor communities, and can thus be said to have criminalised African-American areas/people more than Anglo-Americans. At the very least it legitimised the "pre-emptive criminal' approach to policing which has resulted in so many innocent deaths. This is dicussed further in The Colour of Mass Incarceration which notes that "The people of color being incarcerated are not even the offenders who have committed sensationalized robberies, rapes, or murders. The bulk of the people of color who have fallen victim to mass incarceration are those who have been convicted of class D drug charges. The additional issue that increased the number of people of color incarcerated is the implementation of “Three Strikes” laws. Many of these offenders may even spend little time in prison, but yet they are labeled as drug offenders."
- I'm not sure if you can get access to the PBS documentary, Five Ways Prisoners were used for Profit, but the summary presented here is also useful.
- Is Prison slave labour? outlines arguments for and against the concept
- American Prison: A reporter's undercover journey into the business of punishment set current prison conditions into a historical context. You can access some to the book on googlebooks. If you're after the whole text, try your local library who may have access to the ebook.
- The Sentencing Project is an organisation that promotes prison reform in the USA. they use statistics to assert that "Accelerated reforms that deliberately incorporate the goal of racial justice will lead to a system that is both much smaller and more fair" (p.14). The Colour of Justice is a report that highlights issues like structural disadvantage and implicit bias which affect the way race is constructed through the prison system. They have also published statistical analyses of incarcertation rates and reports for the UN (Regarding Racial Disparities in the United States Criminal Justice System, 2018).
- David Liburd completed a Master's Thesis on The New American Slavery: Capitalism and the Ghettoization of American Prisons as a Profitable Corporate Business in 2017. He asserts that "... previously abandoned historical sequences have been maintained and manifested into a new form of repression and containment of Blacks. The ever increasing incarceration of individuals of color Latino men and most prominently Black men, is a direct result of governmental legislations in the guise of wars on drugs and ghettos deemed to be out of control. These actions have continued to deny equal educational and employment opportunities to people of color while destabilizing cultural identities. The idea to imprison so many Blacks and to make the neighborhoods they live in as intolerable, only serves to publicize and affirm the association of the two. This association helps to maintain the socioeconomic differences that have been in place since slavery. "
Impact on the Community
- The Effects of Mass incarceration on communities of colour suggests that "... when the number of felons removed from a community is “too high,” it may actually harm the places where they use to live. And, since most people who are incarcerated return to the same neighborhoods, or very similar places as those they were removed from, their presence in large numbers, when they go home, adds a substantial burden there, too." It's a readable account of several different studies which it names but does not reference in a Bibliography. Further details of this can be found in The Social and Moral cost of Mass Incarceration.
- Incarceration and Social Inequality examines the inter-generational impact of the prison system on disadvantaged communities, especially the long term economic impacts.
- Blacks in Prison: Perception and Punishment explores "... the psychological and social consequences of this injustice... Might the blackness of the prisons lead to more, not less, punitive attitudes and policies?"
- Fitting-in: How Formerly Incarcerated New York City Black Men Define Success Post-Prison is a sociology study of men integrating in to the community after 3 years of prison. It found that "The inability to gain access to and participate within the larger society ...make more difficult fitting-in for formerly incarcerated Black men. These generally include voter disenfranchisement, the denial of social benefits, employment barriers, being denied access to higher education, and in some instances access to public housing among others." These kinds of problems were all intended to end with the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. It would be interesting to compare this list to the list of difficulties for black men during the operation of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and after official slavery ended up till or including the introduction of the Jim Crow Laws.
- Mass Incarceration, Stress and Infant Mortality examines the effects on women and children outside prisons, including stress that, in poverty stricken areas, results in stillbirths and dying babies.