Convict Leasing: Justifications, Critiques, and the Case for Reparations

convict leasing Justifications, Critiques, and the Case for Reparations Courtney Howell Оковы тяжкие падут, Темницы рухнут - и свобода Вас примет радостно у входа, И братья меч вам отдадут. Your heavy shackles will fall, The prisons will crumble – and freedom will accept you joyously at the door, and your brothers will give back your sword. Aleksandr Pushkin, 1827 T he first prisoner received by the State of Florida into the convict leasing system was an African-American man named Cy Williams. He was officially entered into prison records as “No. 1.” rather than by his name. Williams did not know his own age upon arrival, but one prison official’s memoir states that the boy had been convicted “when he was a mere pickaninny.” Though not large enough to mount a horse, Williams nevertheless attempted to steal one and the authorities caught him while he was trying to lead it off by the halter. For his crime, a judge “duly sentenced” Williams to twenty years imprisonment. Malachi Martin, the warden of the work camp at the time, unsure at first how to put such a small prisoner to work, eventually came up with an idea. He placed a pile of two bricks at each of end of the prison yard while giving “the black baby” two more. The warden then ordered Williams to carry 57 his two bricks to one of the piles at either end of the yard, place them on the ground, pick up the other two bricks, and carry them to the pile at the opposite end. He continued this process for the entire day, always carrying two bricks at a time. Martin instructed Williams to keep the piles of bricks neat and warned him not to break any of them. If he failed to keep his stack orderly, or if he damaged the bricks, he would be whipped. He continued this activity throughout his sentence and “grew up at the task” until given other labor assignments years later. Through the abrasion from simply picking the bricks up and setting them down, Williams managed to wear out four sets of bricks while carrying out his sentence. The state never considered commuting Williams’ sentence, even after ten years of service as protocol dictated; the proper avenues for commutation were not in place at the camp because of inefficient leadership and poor organizational structures within the prison system. Eventually, however, Williams received “gain time” and only served seventeen years out of his twenty-year sentence.1 The experiences of Cy Williams and of the countless other prisoners who passed through convict labor camps in Florida were documented by retired camp Captain J.C. Powell in his memoir The American Siberia. In his book, Powell argues that the convict leasing system was an indispensable part of life in Florida. He maintains that convict leasing was necessary due to a lack of free laborers in the state, while also arguing that the conditions and policies of the camp were needed in order to maintain control within the chaotic natural environment of Florida. Critics of the system challenged these views, however, and Powell repeatedly acknowledges staunch opposition to convict leasing within local populations. Across the country, both supporters and opponents of the convict leasing system engaged in a debate about whether it was morally permissibly, whether it was economically viable, and whether it was effective from a reformative perspective. That debate, and the rhetoric utilized within the conversation, is the focus of this paper. While modern scholarship posits that the convict leasing system functioned as a form of racialized control that created racial inequalities in the period 1. All information on Cy Williams pulled from: J. C. Powell, The American Siberia (Chicago, IL: H. J. Smith & Co., 1891), 15-16. between the abolition of slavery and the adoption of Jim Crow laws, it is my contention that contemporaries of the system— both supporters and critics— understood it instead as primarily a system of economic control that created social and labor inequalities. “Slavery By Another Name” Areas within the southern United States primarily utilized the practice of convict leasing. Though the ratification of the thirteenth amendment of the Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude within the country, it allowed for one important exception: forced labor as punishment for being duly convicted of a crime.2 Because of this exception, states subjected convicted persons to forced labor even after the general end of slavery. Though some northern states devised contracts for convicted criminals and required labor within the field of product manufacturing, systems of convict labor were more notorious and more pervasive in the states of the South.3 In southern states, convicts labored under the supervision of private companies without pay. In turn, these companies or lessees were responsible for providing clothing, food, and living accommodations for their leased prisoners. This 58 2. U.S. Constitution. Amend. XIII, Sec. 1. Passed by Congress on January 31, 1865. Ratified on December 6, 1865. 3. John Roberts, “History of Prisons,” World Encyclopedia of Police Forces and Correctional Systems (Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Publishing, 2006) 74-86. arrangement allowed southern states to deal with growing prison populations without making the necessary adjustments to infrastructure in order to support them. Convicts were mainly put to work at privately owned factories, mines, logging camps, and plantations.4 By the turn of the century, convict leasing had become an increasingly lucrative but significantly abused system of punishment. For example, prisons provided black prisoners to companies for forced labor more often than white inmates, who instead tended to serve their time within penitentiaries or jail cells.5 Additionally, leasing subjected convicts to hazardous working conditions due to a lack of legal safeguards.6 As a result of growing opposition from numerous fronts, the practice was officially discontinued in the 1920s. to legitimize it as beneficial and necessary, and how detractors of the system rationalized their discontent. My work also illustrates changes in sentiment regarding theories of punishment. The debates over the convict leasing system examined in this paper encapsulate differences in opinion over the scope and ultimate goal of imprisonment. Free laborers and progressive social organizations critiqued the system because it created competition for employment and did not provide an acceptable standard of living. Leaders within the system and within other more conservative spheres of society defended it as an improvement over both former systems and other possible alternatives. My paper also traces divisions in theories of punishment from the perspective that hard labor serves a reformative purpose to the notion that isolation is a better means of punishment. I aim to expand upon these historical and philosophical perspectives pertaining to questions of race, labor, and morality as they rela (...truncated)