U.S. Mass Incarceration: Modern Slavery?
Analysis by Clara Mendelek, Contributor
July 15th, 2020
“Slavery did not end in 1865. It evolved.” Bryan Stevenson.
In 1619, the first Africans were brought to the British colonies by ship to Jamestown, Virginia under the legal status of servant: The Atlantic Slave Trade. A perilous journey where millions of Africans died whilst being forcefully taken from their homes across the Atlantic Ocean. The system of slavery deprives the enslaved person of any right of autonomy, legally recognized as property of their white owner. Although the Slave Trade started as purely commercial, it was racialized and inherited. Black people were seen as commodities rather than people, and that established a precedent for White Supremacy: a racist belief based upon the ideology that white people form the pure dominant race, deeming them superior to any other race. It ultimately gives -and gave- white people political and socioeconomic privilege over other ethnic groups, specifically, African Americans. Enslaved people were auctioned along with livestock, separating families.
They worked countless days on end, mainly on cotton plantations in the South, without pay. They were also used for medical experiments, namely by J. Marion Sims, who perfected his gynecological methods on enslaved black women, without the use of anesthesia. Being informed of the hardships African American communities endured for hundreds of years is important in order to understand how the legacy of slavery is carried into current times. Albeit masked under a different form, slavery is well and alive.
The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 was issued by Abraham Lincoln and stated that slaves “are, and henceforth shall be free.” It was followed by the ramification of the Thirteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, its purpose being of the abolition of slavery. This supposed liberation gave hope to the formerly enslaved people, forcefully living in a racist, oppressive system. It states the following:
“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” 1 The underlined clause has been used in the last 150 years as an escape clause, manifesting systemic racism in a new form. It is argued that it forms a loophole, permitting the continument of slavery.
In the same year, Jim Crow Laws were introduced in the South, to counter the supposed abolition of slavery. These laws dictate most aspects of black people’s lives, including where they could work and live. These laws were named after a racist theatrical depiction of African Americans. Segregation was then made an official policy. It applies in housing, education, cemeteries, asylums, jails, theaters, and public parks. Terror in the form of countless racial lynchings were used to impose these laws and assert white domination from 1865 to 1876.
Despite the overthrow of Jim Crow Laws by the Civil Rights Movement, discrimination has persisted in other forms: Convict-Leasing, The War on Drugs, and Mass Incarceration, using the loophole present in the Thirteenth Amendment.
After the Civil War, the prison system started the practice of “convict-leasing”, specifically in the South, where the economy was crumbling. States lease out their convicts to local planters or industrialists, who would be responsible for the workers’ housing and feeding, and would take custody of the worker. The system profits off of their unpaid or underpaid labour, reminiscent of the white owners profiting off of their slaves’ work on plantations.
The exception clause has been linked to the rise of incarceration numbers, specifically that of black people, at more than five times the rate of white people. Racial disparities are found in these numbers, with African Americans making up 34% of the correctional population in 2014. 2 These disparities are due to many factors. In part, they are due to the racial profiling people of colour face on the daily. They are stereotyped as being violent and aggressive by nature. This concept goes back to the persona of Jim Crow, played using blackface, and portraying the black individual as having animalistic instincts and behaviors, as well as uncontrollable aggressive sexual desires.
Racism and stigma affect police-community interactions and therefore create hostility and a sense of danger between local authorities and communities of colour. Concluding from information from over 2 million 911 calls in two US cities, white officers sent to Black neighborhoods fire their guns five times more than Black officers sent to these same neighborhoods for similar calls. 3 The power local authorities have over minorities majorly contribute to the flagrant presence of Police Brutality, where unnecessary force is used upon innocent people, or people of minor offenses.
The American incarceration system is a peculiar case. Whilst the US constitutes only 5% of the population, it holds one fourth of the world’s prisoners. This alarming rate raises questions. Furthermore, between 1980 and 2015, the number of people incarcerated in America increased from 500,000 to 2.2 million. 4 This was due to the prison boom created by the War on Drugs.
The War on Drugs was initiated by Richard Nixon in 1971. It was accompanied by laws that forced judges to give out mandatory sentences for small drug offences as well as life sentences for possession of drugs. Almost half of the felons were convicted for marijuana possession. White neighborhoods and communities, where the use of marijuana is equal to or higher than that of communities of colour, are rarely, if ever, targeted or ticketed. Higher arrest and incarceration rates for black communities do not reflect a higher rate of drug use, rather an increased focus on urban areas, and communities of colour. Police disproportionately search young black men and are more likely to imprison them. If caught for the same crimes, blacks receive sentences that are 10 percent longer than those of white people. 5
As a person of colour, once in the system, they could spend the rest of their lives there; either by receiving an increased sentence for minor mishaps, or by simply not being able to survive the brutality found in prisons. Not to mention, if released, men and women find themselves stripped of their rights, including but not limited to the right to vote, in addition to employment, public housing, and student aid. Therefore, wrongfully convicted people, in most cases African Americans, find themselves unable to start their lives outside of the prison system. This method of discrimination goes unnoticed seeing as though it is formed by unspoken prejudices normalized all over the country, instead of racist laws.
According to the United Nations, slavery “refers to situations of exploitation that a person cannot refuse or leave because of threats, violence, coercion, deception, and /or abuse of power.” Is involuntary servitude considered slavery? Some would argue that there is a distinction between the two, however, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled in 1871 that a convicted person was “a slave of the State.” 6
What we know is that POC are being subjects to racial profiling, police brutality, false convictings, unjust sentences... These are successive and successful measures taken by authorities in order to disempower African Americans. They are no longer incarcerating the individual, but the whole social group. This is a call for reform of the judiciary and prison system.
2 https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cpus14.pdf
3 Hoekstra, M. & Sloan, C. W. National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 26774 (2020).
4 https://www.naacp.org/criminal-justice-fact-sheet/
5 https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2413&context=articles