The History of Incarceration of African Americans/Blacks in the United States

Introduction

The goal of this chapter is to chronicle the legacy of the disproportionate representation of African Americans/Blacks in the criminal justice system in the United States. The terms African American and Black are used interchangeably to define the ethnicity of individuals with ancestral origins in Africa and direct family lineage in North America to the transatlantic slave trade or any person who self-identifies ethnically as African American and/or Black. The authors use the multi-systems life course (MSLC) (Murphy-Erby et al., 2010) perspective to examine the socio-historical, economic, and political contexts of African American incarceration beginning with the institution of Black enslavement and its evolution into modern-day mass incarceration. The Afrocentric Intergenerational Solidarity (AIS) (Waites, 2008, 2009) framework is used by the authors to contextualize African American family responses to incarceration through a lens of traditional African American generational cultural values. The authors chronicle the path of policing and social control of Black bodies through legislative policies and social practices by majority-White policymakers and organizations and reinforced with attention to interlocking educational, child welfare, and social systems. It is important to acknowledge that White supremacist ideology and values can be internalized and perpetuated by individuals in positions of power from any racial/ethnic background. The internalization of racism by people of color can be equally injurious to the lives of African American families (Speight, 2007).

The persistent systematic structure of policing and social control of Black people has led many scholars, civic leaders, and activists to argue that the enslavement of Black people in the United States did not end with the Emancipation Proclamation of 1865, but instead, evolved into a system of mass incarceration (Alexander, 2010; Stevenson, 2014). Including both the adult and juvenile criminal justice systems in which Black men, women, and children are disproportionately overrepresented, the authors document the historical evolution of policing policies and practices from slavery and the slave codes through Reconstruction, Jim Crow segregation, the Black migration from the south, and the industrial revolution. The authors examine the historical origins of contemporary methods of controlling Black bodies including incarceration, community supervision, probation, and parole with particular attention to the intersections of race, gender, class, and age in understanding the types of offenses African Americans are typically charged with and convicted of, and the sentencing practices and decision-making mechanisms that drive policies and practices within the adult, juvenile, child welfare, and school systems. The authors identify legislation and practices resulting in the disproportionate sentencing of Black children as adults and their confinement in adult prison systems and the role of child welfare as a pipeline to the juvenile justice system. Additionally, the authors demonstrate how overwhelmingly White public-school administrators, teachers, and decision-makers use harsh “Zero Tolerance” school policies and practices to routinely push Black children out of school and into the prison pipeline. Implications for policy, practice, and advocacy are discussed. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a tool to engage counselors in culturally responsive policy and practice and resources to reduce the risk factors that contribute to African American family incarceration. While African American families from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds experience incarceration, the chapter focuses primarily on the experiences of Black families living in poverty.