The prison disciplined convicts into an industrial labor force

Evidence

In the post-Civil War era, emancipated black men and women comprised an enormous reservoir of labor at a time when planters—and industrialists—could no longer rely on slavery, as they had done in the past. This labor became increasingly available for use by private agents precisely through the convict lease system, discussed earlier, and related systems such as debt peonage. Recall that in the aftermath of slavery, the penal population drastically shifted, so that in the South it rapidly became disproportionately black. This transition set the historical stage for the easy acceptance of disproportionately black prison populations today. — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 253 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The prison boom was a way to concentrate and manage a capitalist human surplus; Abolitionist analysis exposes the prison-industrial-AI complex as one system — , The Braided Reading EPUB: 5-Year…, 2601; Prison disciplined workers for industrial capitalism — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 115 (+8 more)

Related

• The prison boom was a way to concentrate and manage a capitalist human surplus (similarity 0.92)
• Post-slavery prisons reabsorbed emancipated black labor through the convict lease system (similarity 0.90)
• California’s prison boom absorbed surpluses of capital, land, and labor (similarity 0.88)
• Prison disciplined workers for industrial capitalism (similarity 0.87)
• Alabama’s prison population flipped from ninety-nine percent white to majority black after emancipation (similarity 0.86)
• Prison is an ordinary life dimension in poor communities of color (similarity 0.85)
• Prison abolition has a long history but remains culturally unthinkable (similarity 0.84)
• Post-emancipation labor systems trapped former slaves by law and poverty. (similarity 0.84)
• Black convicts could be exploited because they were still perceived as slaves. (similarity 0.83)
• Black labor exploitation persisted in new forms beyond slavery’s legal end. (similarity 0.83)
• The penitentiary mirrored chattel slavery in its structure and daily regime. (similarity 0.82)
• Mass incarceration functions as a management system for surplus labor. (similarity 0.82)
• Private prisons require a steady supply of prisoners as raw material. (similarity 0.82)
• The convict lease system rationally accelerated Southern industrialization. (similarity 0.81)
• Nearly one in three young black men were under correctional supervision by 1995 (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Post-slavery prisons reabsorbed emancipated black labor through the convict lease system #corroborates (0.85) — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 253
• The prison boom was a way to concentrate and manage a capitalist human surplus #expands (0.55)