We know about the rise of mass incarceration, which really took off in the 1980s with the war on drugs, as well as the emergence of for-profit prisons. But my research shows that the history of black incarceration goes further back in time still. I found enslaved people variously locked up in city or local jails, in private slave pens, in state penitentiaries; and those are only the ones that entered the formal legal system. Most didn’t. There were also private plantation prisons, the dungeons under the plantation house, and the “hot boxes” they used.
TCR: How did American slavery transition to the prison industrial complex of today?
JF: Basically, with the Civil War over and slavery abolished, people realized that the criminal justice system could be used for racial and social control. They could fill up these jails with allegedly troublesome black people. It didn’t take long, however, before the number of black prisoners outgrew the number of incarceration facilities. At that point, you start to see the rise of various convict leasing systems, where prisoners are rented out to private companies or individuals. Again, you’re still making a profit for people who are criminalizing black behavior. Those convict lease systems eventually are reformed or fall by the wayside as we enter the first few decades of the 20th century, but the same kinds of things continue. The next really big innovation comes with the war on drugs in the 1980s. This is also when we see the emergence of private for-profit prison systems. Today, there are basically two major for-profit prison companies that are each worth pretty close to $2 billion apiece. All in all, it’s a $5 billion industry. These are people making a lot of money through a process that is much the same as the one a slave trader or a slave owner used before the Civil War.
TCR: How has the history of black enslavement contributed to our society’s understanding of African-Americans’ struggle with our criminal justice system?
JF: When slavery was abolished, the world of southern whites was completely turned upside down. The criminalization of black behavior was a way to make sure that subjugation in various ways continued. It became a self-fulfilling cycle, where people are going to assume that black people are criminals and then that is going to further lead to continued incarceration. And the cycle is just going to repeat itself over time. I think that the residue of slavery was never really shaken off. It’s manifested in the criminal justice system in some pretty horrific ways that are still very much present.