Download This PaperDemocracy and the Intersection of Prisons, Racism, and Capital
15 National Black Law Journal 87 (1997-98)
23 Pages Posted: 17 Nov 2020
Date Written: January 1, 1997
Abstract
Rutgers University History Professor David Oshinsky's book entitled "'Worse Than Slavery': Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice" provides a historical study of criminal justice and its intersection with capital and racism, shedding light on the modern threat to democracy posed by the profit-driven prison industry.
Oshinsky's book shows us that the intersection of penology, race, and capital insulated from the public eye is a threat to democracy. The problem of this intersection, however, is not merely part of Oshinsky's detailed account of the past; it is happening now and is the quintessential reason for an increased form of democratic oversight of the state's power to incarcerate. Without popular vigilance when it comes to this intersection, the social policy of the country as it relates to imprisonment is left to those with capital to reinforce the racism of the greater society. A monster is created that grows without any true reference to crime or safety. Clearly, in times such as these, we have a great deal to learn from this important book.
In this essay, I review Oshinsky's book as both a backdrop for the current prison-industrial state's unprecedented growth and as a spring board for an analysis of these grave issues facing the nationwide criminal justice and penal system today. In Part II, I recount Oshinsky's depiction of the convict leasing system in the Jim Crow South. I then show that this institution's intersection of race, the criminal justice system, and capital provides insight into the explosion of the modern day prison industry and its effects in furthering racial supremacy. In Part III, I explore Oshinsky's history of Mississippi's handling of prisoners while paying close attention to the processes that brought about the reforms that have occurred. This history provides a jumping-off point for an examination of the current law as it pertains to access to prisons by the public. This necessary right of access is the only guarantor of democratic oversight in this particularly grave time of profit-driven expansion of prisons and the increasing incarceration of African Americans. Ultimately, "Worse Than Slavery" points us, in a way that only history can, to the necessity of vigilant democratic oversight of the state and its connection to capital and racism in the modern prison-industrial complex.
Keywords: prison industry, privatization, war on crime, oshinsky
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David S. Cohen (Contact Author)
Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law ( email )
3320 Market Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104
215-571-4714 (Phone)