American Horror Story: How American Prison System Replaced Slavery and Reproduces Racial Inequality Across Generations

The American prison system is a tool of racial oppression and reproducing inequality that benefits White America. As the reach of the prison system expands well beyond prison walls, it has an intergenerational impact on Black families and communities.

The American prison system has been designed as a tool of racial oppression, reproducing inequality that benefits White Americans. This has intergenerational impact on Black families and communities, as the reach and implications of the prison system expand well beyond prison
walls.

America has the highest incarceration rate in the world, with 2.3 million people incarcerated
today in prison or jail (Prison Policy Initiative, 2020). Anti-Black racist policies and ideologies
have lead to the overrepresentation of Black people in the prison system: Black Americans make up only 13% of the US population (U.S. Census Bureau, 2019), but yet comprise 38% of
America’s prison and jail populations (Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2020).

Although dominant ideologies have been justifying this by creating the myth of Black men as criminals, the disproportionate incarceration rates are not representative of Black men’s crime rates, or their severity. Rather, Black men are more likely to be convicted for small offences, and
get longer sentences than White offenders in similar situations (United States Sentencing Commission, 2017). Additionally, Black Americans receive bail amounts twice as high as their White counterparts, which they are often unable to afford, contributing to the unconvicted pretrial populations, which makes up for almost two-thirds of America’s jail population (Wendy Sawyer, 2019).

These racial disparities in incarceration become easier to understand once you understand why the prison system was designed, how it has been utilized for economic and political agendas, and how the racial disparities are the precise goal, rather than an unfortunate by-product, of the American prison system.

13th, a documentary about the history of race and the criminal justice system in America, clearly
exposes the institutional links reproducing a system that benefits White, and oppresses Black
people (Duvernay & Moran, 2016). The 13th Amendment to the US Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. This led to the development
of American prison system as we know it.

We have to remember that slavery was an economic system, and its abolishment led the nation to
face major economic challenges (Duvernay & Moran, 2016). Rather than addressing them in a
new and just way, America put a loophole in the constitution that allowed the prison system to
serve as an extension of slavery: convicted for extremely minor charges, Black Americans were
once again locked up, and building American economy (Duvernay & Moran, 2016).

As decades passed, so did laws contributing directly to reproducing this system. Politicians continued to politicize Black people and form anti-Black racist rhetoric to win elections, and lobbyist pushed laws expanding the prison system for economic gains of many of America’s major corporations (Duvernay & Moran, 2016). Anti-Black narratives utilized media to create the image of the Black man as criminal, justifying practices of disproportionate policing and
incarceration (Duvernay & Moran, 2016). Laws introducing mandatory minimums, or giving police the right to stop anyone who looks like an immigrant, served to benefit those profiting from the prison system (Duvernay & Moran, 2016). At the same time, they contributed to mass incarceration, disproportionately affecting Black men and their families.

We cannot think about the implications of the American prison system without thinking about
the families. Majority of US inmates are parents (Foster & Hagan, 2009), and it is estimated that
about 2.7 million children in America currently have an incarcerated parent (Prison Fellowship,
n.d.). It is not just the incarcerated that fall victims of the prison system, and we need to
understand the magnitude of its intergenerational impact.

Families affected by parental incarceration face unique challenges. The loss of a family member due to incarceration is surrounded by stigma, and forces the family to grieve quietly, without sympathy and support (Arditti, 2005). This loss is also unrecognized by social policies, as families are left with no economic support, despite potentially losing the main provider (Arditti,
2005). This can have detrimental effects to family’s psychological well-being, as well as reducing the resources available to them.

Seeing how the prison system was designed as a tool of systemic oppression against Black
people, it is particularly important to understand the intergenerational consequences of parental
imprisonment. African American children are at a much higher risk of parental imprisonment
(Foster & Hagan, 2009). Research has found many negative outcomes of parental imprisonment
on children: decreases in children’s educational attainment (Foster & Hagan, 2009), poor academic performance, alcohol and drug abuse, and involvement in the criminal justice system
themselves (Arditti, 2005).

The unique challenges faced by families affected by parental incarceration, as well as their
psychosocial effects on children, go unrecognized and unaddressed. The system built to put Black men in jail puts their children there too, pointing to the intergenerational reach of the American prison system. Educational attainment has been linked to higher lifetime earnings (Cross 2020); as such, lower educational attainment among children with incarcerated parent leads to lower wages, less upward socioeconomic mobility, and ultimately, reproduces poverty. By decreasing chances of future success and increasing their chances of future incarceration, the prison system creates a new generation of inmates.

The prison system continues to achieve the goals it was designed for: deprive Black Americans
of their freedoms, exploit them for economic and political agendas, and maintain a system of
oppression and inequality that benefits White Americans. The system has intergenerational
implications, affecting not only those incarcerated, but also their families and communities. As
such, the “justice” system does the opposite of what its name indicates: it creates very different
lived realities and futures for Americans based on the colour of their skin. America is not, and
never was, the “land of equal opportunity”; not even for children.