The Carceral State and the Crucible of Black Politics: An Urban History of the Rockefeller Drug Laws

Abstract

While scholars have illuminated the effects of mass incarceration, the origins of the criminal justice policies that produced these outcomes remain unclear. Many explanations obscure as much as they reveal-in great measure because they either ignore or minimize the consequences of crime. Emphasizing the exploitation of white fears, the construction of black criminality, or the political strategies of Republican political elites, prevailing theories ignore black crime victims. In order to excavate the historical roots of the modern carceral state, this study traces the development of New York State's Rockefeller drug laws. Rather than beginning in Albany, this history focuses on Harlem, a community hit hardest by rising crime rates and drug addiction. Drawing upon a variety of primary sources, this study traces how African American activists framed and negotiated the incipient drug problem in their neighborhoods and interrogates the policy prescriptions they attached to indigenously constructed frames. It describes how middle-class African Americans facing the material threats of crime and crime-related problems drew upon the moral content of indigenous class categories to understand these threats and develop policy prescriptions. It reveals how the black middle class shaped the development of this punitive policy and played a crucial role in the development of mass incarceration.

What’s violence got to do with it? Inequality, punishment, and state failure in US politics

“…Second, and relatedly, neglecting violence obscures deep socio-economic and racial disparities in the experience of violence, and treats populations suffering from high risk as mere objects of social policy, rendering invisible their political agency and real interest in greater security. While scholarly work has rightly observed the disproportionate use of imprisonment for the poor and minorities, the neglect of violence has overlooked the daily threat to these same individuals, families and communities that real violence imposes (but see Forman, 2012; Fortner, 2013; Kleiman, 2010; Miller, 2010).…”

The Guardian Angels: Law and Order and Citizen Policing in New York City

“…Recent scholars have identified black support for more punitive crime policies, such as the draconian Rockefeller Drug Laws. 49 In the 1960s, for example, Reverend Oberia D. Dempsey of Harlem proposed, "Take the junkies off the streets and put 'em in camps," and in 1970s and 80s, black spokespeople insisted that "the millions of striving, law-abiding Negroes . .…”

Straight, No Chaser

“…But the formation of this policy does not occur within the private sector or within coalitions of private- and public-sector actors—as Stone conceives of them. 1 Rather, it occurs within local and state bodies that, depending upon public attentiveness to the issue, are potentially autonomous or potentially subject to popular rule; and crime policy is executed by local bureaucracies that are governed by their own interests, rules, and capacities (Fortner 2013, 2014). In fact, Stone’s discussion of the reform of Atlanta’s Police Department during the mayoralty of Maynard Jackson exhibits these dynamics.…”