Welcome

Hi there.

Glad to see you've made your way to this little blog. I intend, at the moment, to use this website as a space to chronicle my thoughts on American criminal justice and culture (a broad topic, indeed). Initially, the page will function much like an annotated aggregator with longer ramblings interspersed. That ratio may change in the future depending on my opinion of my opinions and how much free time I have. My interest in these sorts of projects can be fickle.

The picture that heads the blog encapsulates some of the themes I'd like to explore. The photograph was taken in 1935 by a young, white woman at Parchman Farm, Mississippi's infamous prison plantation. I dug it up in the Beinecke Library senior year and have been a little obsessed with it since then. I had to crop it a bit for the website, but the basic scene is preserved. Two white prisoners stare directly into the camera. One embraces a snow woman (one can make out "her" breasts under his right arm), while a black prisoner watches on.

Photograph: Estelle Caro Eggleston

The tableau is extraordinary and captures a stunning amount of information about the culture of the time. The white men stare roguishly at the photographer - an observer can easily imagine the risque thoughts racing through their heads. They don't suffer the camera's gaze passively; they commandeer it for themselves, posing as a particular criminal archetype, one based on the joyous and pleasurable nature of transgression. The cigarette communicates this wonderfully. It wasn't until the 1930s that American society thought it acceptable for women to smoke in public [1], and so the cigarette represents a 'harmless' indulgence with a naughty connotation. I imagine that the men hope their female portraitist might view a tryst with a convict in the same light.

In contrast, the black prisoner has been cast as a janitor, an emasculating role that, particularly in the context of Parchman, recalls slavery. As I'm sure the reader (intelligent, well-read, and lovely as you must be) knows, 1935 Mississippi was not the place to toy with inter-racial romance. The inmate is wise to keep his distance from the flirtatious scene.

Cultural prejudices affected more than just individual behavior; they shaped criminal justice policy, too. One of the prevalent stereotypes about African-Americans held that they were more lustful than whites. They simply needed more sex. As ridiculous as this now sounds, it was taken seriously by the men who ran Parchman. They didn't much care for the well-being of the convicts under their supervision, but they did care about their profits. In order to get the maximal labor from black laborers, they instituted the first system of conjugal visits in America and, amazingly, it was available to only black inmates for a period of time [Oshinsky, Worse Than Slavery].

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In The Prison and the American Imagination, Caleb Smith makes the argument (an argument I largely buy) that incarceration was conceived by early American penal innovators as a method for remaking the souls of convicts. This (theoretically) rehabilitative policy emerged from a particular cultural understanding of humanity. As America's cultural beliefs have changed and fragmented, criminal justice policy has changed, or been interpreted and justified in different ways. Criminals, convicts, and their portrayal in the arts and media actively affect this process. The photograph that I've chosen to highlight is a snapshot of a cultural moment, one that illuminates where we've been and elucidates themes that remain salient today (to name a few: the legacy of slavery, popular conceptions of criminality, and the politics of sight). It is a fascinating, ongoing story, a saga worth monitoring and exploring.

History, culture, sex, race, crime, punishment - what else does a good blog need? Did I mention sex?

Thanks for reading.

J