The Prison System At Parchman

How is it that prison reformers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries put such a big amount of effort into changing the way people were being punished. Without touching on the importance of racial disparities occurring during that specific time-period. Davis states “If the individual was not perceived as possessing inalienable rights and liberties, then the alienation of those rights and liberties by removal from society to a space tyrannically governed by the state would not have made sense.” (Davis 2003: 44). African Americans can be viewed as one of the greatest racially discriminated groups of people since the beginning of slavery. Many viewed slaves as unintelligent individuals that were nothing more than a piece of meat whose main purpose was to endure hard labor for no pay. This “airtight system of social control” (Burris & Burris 2011) is the foundation of oppression that has allowed our society to devalue the rights

The article draws on evidence gathered from plantation owner’s personal writings, bondwomens accounts, relatives accounts and statistics to demonstrate the everyday events and repertoires that occurred in Antebellum plantations. Using plantations accounts such as William Ervin, Camp is able to give us an insight into the formation of the plantation and the spatial borders that limit slaves. Furthermore, plantation accounts from owners gives insight into the punishment that bondpeople receive. This essential knowledge provides an understanding into the conditions that bondpeople dealt with every day and the psychological mind set of plantation owners. Camp builds on these fundamental ideals by using primary accounts from enslaved people to bring an understanding in why truancy was an everyday occurrence. Specifically, Camp uses bondwomen’s accounts to understand the gender norms that led to different acts and rates of rebellion inconsistent with men. Camp focuses on the gender issue of women and the expectations laid by other slave members as described by Patience M. Avery. The last essential primary evidence that Camp uses to form her argument is through statistics of slave women which demonstrate the lack of women escaping to the north in specific states. However, some of her statistics have the potential to limit her argument as shown in describing incidents of truancy on plantation farms in South Carolina. These statistics occur in different years, 1828 and 1831 to show the rate of women committing truancy, however the differences in years could indicate that these rates could be an anomaly. Therefore, although Camp brings in useful and relative source to build a constructive argument there are areas which could limit the article. Camps overall uses vital primary sources builds on her contention

The purpose of this study is to expose the process of mass incarceration of poor black males, and females increasingly, within the context of a fabricated war on drugs which really is serving to keep the prison population booming by exploiting traditionally disadvantaged minorities in society. Alexander rightfully calls this a ?redesign? of the old racial caste system in America which was supposed to have been destroyed by the civil rights movement. The war on drugs in the 80s merely became the newest vehicle by which to exploit the black community in this country. The War on Drugs is really the rationale for racial control, which targets black men and women and relegates millions of citizens to what Alexander calls a ?second class status (Alexander, 2012).?

When, Moody first got to Madison County in Mississippi she was surprised to see that the Black community vastly outnumbers the white community and many Black people in the county owned large plots of land. She was at first under the impression that this would mean there was less poverty than what she saw in her hometown, however she soon learned that land did not directly relate to prosperity. “I just didn’t see how the Negros in Madison County could be so badly off…as Mrs. Chinn explained that night, the federal government controls cotton by giving each state a certain allotment. Each state decides how much each county gets and each county distributes the allotments to the farmers. It always ends up with the white people getting most of the allotments” (313). Though the action of the state, the opportunity for Black farmers to accumulate was non-existent. Economic prosperity would always favor white people because with economic freedom came power and influence, neither of which Black people were allowed to have in the Jim Crow south.

The WPA narratives consist of collections of interviews and first-person accounts of former slaves. The narratives talk about the institution of slavery in the southern states, particularly Texas, the lifestyle of slaves, how slave-owners treated slaves, and how slaves sought freedom. The narratives focus on Texas as a state where slavery continued to flourish amidst attempts to abolish it. In this analytical essay, the WPA narratives will be examined to reveal the experiences of enslaved people and the institution of slavery in terms of the lifestyle of slaves, slave population, disintegration of the institution, and the urban slave experience.

Though most citizens in the United States would agree that the prison system in the U.S. needs to be amended, do they see the prison system as a way to enforce the racial caste system? At first Michelle Alexander, the author of The New Jim Crow, did not see the prison systems as racially motivated until doing further research. After researching the issue, Alexander found the prison system was a way to oppress African Americans and wrote the novel The New Jim Crow. The New Jim Crow follows the history of the racial caste system and in the novel Alexander comes to the conclusion that the mass incarceration of African American is the New Jim Crow, or in other words a new system of black oppression. Though some might try to refute the idea of mass incarceration of African Americans, Alexander offers a well thought out argument with substantial evidence and data to compellingly link Jim Crow and mass incarceration and proves that it is an issue that should be on the radar of all U.S. citizens.

Although the Jim Crow legislation system no longer exists, Alexander claims that this racial caste system has taken a different form in the society. Like the Jim Crow system, the incarceration system works to lock up black men though legal frames work. In fact, it is common to hear that black men are arrested much more than white men. In Alexander’s view, many black men are arrested and segregated in American

Analyzing how Parchman reflects the intertwined themes of reform and race, we must look back into the history of the state, to see what caused the instability that led to reform and the role that citizens played. The Civil War is just ending and the South lost not only did they lose the battle , but they also lost their family members, homes, land and most of all for some they lost their slaves. During the war Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed all slaves in territories that opposed the Union. Oshinsky paints a beautiful picture of the scenes that had unfolded when he wrote that, “Few could escape the consequences of this war. Mississippi was bankrupt. Its commerce and transportation had collapsed. The railroads and levees lay in ruins. Local governments barely functioned.” (p.12) The world that many white southerners had come to know was now destroyed. Being placed under these conditions, outraged many white southerners. Adding fuel to the fire, the fact of knowing that former slaves were now equal to even the poorest of whites, did not set well. The author states that, "this hatred had many sources. The ex-slave had become a scapegoat for the South’s humiliating defeat. John F.H. Claiborne, Mississippi’s most prominent historian, blamed him for causing the war and for helping the North to prevail.” ( Oshinsky, 1996, p. 14) Carl Schdrz, a reformer from the North, became very concerned about how blacks would be treated, with rising sense of

Davis reveals that race and gender has played a huge role in our nation 's history. What is very interesting is the fact that she takes these topics and goes with it in two totally different directions. She does elaborate the importance of how race and gender plays a massive role in her belief of prisons as sites of massive inequality but she casts a much broader light on other things. The function and pure nature of the prison system is also shaped in a questionable way. This also shines light towards our society that relies so heavily on incarceration. The discussion is then shifted away from questions about crime and punishment and toward concerns for social justice and human rights. The racial aspects of her findings will largely be familiar to anyone who has thought seriously about prisons before the excess

During the antebellum South, many Africans, who were forced migrants brought to America, were there to work for white-owners of tobacco and cotton plantations, manual labor as America expanded west, and as supplemental support of their owner’s families. Harriet Jacobs’s slave narrative supports the definition of slavery (in the South), discrimination (in the North), sexual gender as being influential to a slave’s role, the significant role of family support, and how the gender differences viewed and responded to life circumstances.

Slavery has always been viewed as one of the most scandalous times in American history. It may seem that the entire institution of slavery has been categorized as white masters torturing defenseless African Americans. However, not every slave has encountered this experience. In this essay I will focus on the life of two former slaves Harriet Smith and Mr. George Johnson and how in some cases their experience were similar as well as different in other aspects. The negative aspects of slave life were unquestionably heinous and for that reason especially, it is also important to also reveal the lives of slaves whom were treated fairly and with respect.

“As the walls of the ghetto shook and threatened to crumble, the walls of the prison were correspondingly extended, enlarged and fortified. . .” (Wacquant 2002:52). In his account, Wacquant implies that once ghettos began to disperse, American society required a new place for African Americans to reside: prison. Reading this article, one would never know that African Americans existed outside ghettos and prisons. The concept of African Americans in suburbia or anywhere of decent living standards is ignored completely. There is no dispute over the “racially skewed mass imprisonment” (Wacquant 2002:56) of black men and women, but not only African Americans inhabit ghettos and the “inner city.” However, the “centuries-old

Gresham M. Sykes describes the society of captives from the inmates’ point of view. Sykes acknowledges the fact that his observations are generalizations but he feels that most inmates can agree on feelings of deprivation and frustration. As he sketches the development of physical punishment towards psychological punishment, Sykes follows that both have an enormous effect on the inmate and do not differ greatly in their cruelty.

Having compared the plantations in the United States to the death and labor camps of the Nazi Regime historians believe slaves and prisoners were equally enslaved. Quite a few argue that the treatment of the slaves was as inhuman as the treatment of the prisoners, in the death camps. In countless ways, the historians can be proven correct. Designed to hold prisoners’ captive, the Nazi death camps were a place to send prisoners to their death because they were thought non-superior race. Though of as animals, slaveholders had no dispute with using their wealth and power to hold slaves captive. Both parties were guilty of mistreatment and unjust actions towards fellow human beings. Ironically, a hundred years’ separation and yet history

Michel Foucault is a very famous French intellectual who practiced the knowledge of sociology. Foucault analyzed how knowledge related to social structures, in particular the concept of punishment within the penal system. His theory through, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, is a detailed outline of the disciplinary society; in which organizes populations, their relations to power formations, and the corresponding conceptions of the subjects themselves. Previously, this type of punishment focused on torture and dismemberment, in which was applied directly to bodies. Foucault mentions through his literary piece, “the soul is the effect and instrument of a political anatomy: the soul is the prison of the body (p.30). However, today, the notion of punishment involves public appearances in a court and much more humane sentences. However, it is important to note and to understand the idea of power and knowledge; it is fundamental to understand the social system as a whole.