A Punishment for "Crime": Anti-Blackness in the Prison Industrial Complex in the 21st Century

Presenter

Owen H. Thornton

Campus

Framingham State University

Sponsor

Jon Huibregtse, Department of History, Framingham State University

Schedule

Session 2, 11:30 AM - 12:15 PM [Schedule by Time][Poster Grid for Time/Location]

Location

Poster Board C19, Poster Showcase Room (163), Row 2 (C11-C20) [Poster Location Map]

Abstract

The enactment of the Thirteenth Amendment marked the beginning of a new country for Black Americans. Freedom was granted to the slave population of the United States. However, they were then met with a myriad of complex, anti-Black systems which, through both subtle and overt means, upheld the racist statutes that plagued African-Americans. The most influential of these measures was the development of the Prison Industrial Complex. Despite outlawing slavery, the text of the Thirteenth Amendment stated that forced labor without compensation would be allowed to exist in only one circumstance: "as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." Today, both private and public prisons capitalize on that caveat; there is now a major market which produces goods for many powerful businesses, funneling money into the pockets of private interests, prison officials, and politicians through the forced labor of prisoners. Parallel to this issue is that of over-policing and disproportionate incarceration rates of Black Americans. Previous scholars have argued that the racial inequalities in the justice system are a product of the Prison Complex and its supporters. According to these claims, the system is incentivized to arrest and imprison at high rates in order to increase the highly profitable work force found in prisons. Through analysis of previous scholarship and relevant primary sources, this paper will analyze the history of this anti-Black system, and concludes with an assessment of its deleterious effects on African-Americans.

Keywords

Thirteenth Amendment, Prison Labor, Civil Rights, Oppression

Research Area

History

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