Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Racialized, Sexualized, and Criminalized: Carceral Citizenship of Black Women

  • Published:
Critical Criminology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Black women in the criminal legal system have distinct racialized, gendered, and classed experiences as a result of their intersectional identities. Carceral citizenship (Miller and Stuart 2017), an alternative form of citizenship in which individuals with criminal records simultaneously experience disadvantages and advantages of membership, largely does not discuss the experiences of Black women. Its application to Black women, however, demonstrates that carceral citizenship extends instead of introduces social control in the lives of Black women, an efficient dehumanizing tool for differential outcomes in the lives of Black women. Their carceral citizenship is borne out of their standing as citizens within the US—a belonging not fully afforded. However, Black women carceral citizens demonstrate individual and collective resistance against the longstanding surveillance and criminalization perpetuated by the criminal legal system, working tirelessly on behalf of others in line with the legacies of Black women’s resistance.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Alexander, M. (2010). The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. New Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Alfred M., Chlup, D. (2009). Neoliberalism, illiteracy, and poverty: Framing the rise in Black women's incarceration. Western Journal of Black Studies, 33(4): 240–249. https://delcat.on.worldcat.org/oclc/712163674

  • Andersen, M. & Collins, P. 2006. Race, class, and gender: An anthology. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

  • Arnold, R.A. (1990). Processes of victimization and criminalization of Black women. Social Justice, 17(3): 153-166.

    Google Scholar 

  • Arnold Ventures. (2021). Topeka Sam is working to support formerly Incarcerated Women. Arnold Foundation. https://www.arnoldventures.org/stories/topeka-sam-is-working-to-support-formerly-incarcerated-women/. Accessed 25 November 2021.

  • Bonilla-Silva, E. (2001). White supremacy and racism in the post-civil rights era. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Broner, N. (2005). Outcomes of mandated and nonmandated New York city jail diversion for offenders with alcohol, drug, and mental disorders. The Prison Journal, 85(1): 18-49.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bronson, J. and Carson, A.E. (2019). Prisoners in 2017. Bureau of Justice Statistics. http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=6546 Accessed 26 November 2021.

  • Brown, M., Carnoy, M., Currie, E., Duster, T., Oppenheimer, D., Shultz, M., & Wellman, D. (2003). Whitewashing Race: The Myth of a Color-Blind Society. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Burch, M. (2017). (Re)entry from the bottom up: Case study of a critical approach to assisting women coming home from prison. Critical Criminology: The Official Journal of the ASC Division on Critical Criminology and the ACJS Section on Critical Criminology, 25(3): 357-374.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burnham, L. (2016). Gender and the Black jobs crisis. Souls, 18(1): 126-134. https://doi.org/10.1080/10999949.2016.1162593

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burton, S., & Lynn, C. (2019). Becoming Ms. Burton: From prison to recovery to leading the fight for incarcerated women. New Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chiqwada, R. (1989). The criminalisation and imprisonment of Black women. Probation Journal, 36(3): 100-105. https://doi.org/10.1177/026455058903600302

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Collins, P. (1998). Fighting words: Black women and the search for justice. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Collins, P. [1990] (2000). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. 2d ed. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Collins, P.H. (2004). Black sexual politics: African Americans, gender and the new racism. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Comfort, M. (2008). Doing time together: Love and family in the shadow of the prison. University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Conley, D. (1999). Being Black, living in the red: Race, wealth, and social policy in America. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Couloute, L. (2018). Nowhere to go: Homelessness among formerly incarcerated people. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/housing.html. Accessed 1 November 2021.

  • Couloute, L., Kopf, D. (2018). Out of prison & out of work: Unemployment among formerly incarcerated people. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/outofwork.html. Accessed 1 November 2021.

  • Davis, A.Y. (2014). Deepening the debate over mass incarceration. Socialism and Democracy, 28(3): 15-23. https://doi.org/10.1080/08854300.2014.963945

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Elliott, S, Reid, M (2019) Low-income black mothers parenting adolescents in the mass incarceration era: The long reach of criminalization. American Sociological Review 84(2): 197-219.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Erez, E. (1989). Gender, rehabilitation, and probation decisions*. Criminology, 27(2): 307-327. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-9125.1989.tb01034.x

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ezeala-Harrison, F. (2010). Black feminization of poverty: Evidence from the U.S. cross-regional data. The Journal of Developing Areas, 44(1): 149–166. https://delcat.on.worldcat.org/oclc/5792810307

  • Feagin, J. (2000). Racist America: Roots, current realities, and future reparations. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Friedman B., Hitchens, B.K. (2021). Theorizing Embodied Carcerality A Black Feminist Sociology of Punishment. In Editor Z. Luna &, W. Pirtle (Eds). Black Feminist Sociology: Perspectives and Praxis (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003199113

  • Gilkes, C.T. (1994). If it wasn’t for the women...”: African American women, community work, and social change. Women of color in US society, 229–246.

  • Glenn, E. [2002] (2004). Unequal freedom: How race and gender shaped American citizenship and labor. 2d. ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gottschalk, M. (2011). The past, present, and future of mass incarceration in the United States. Criminology & Public Policy, 10(3): 483-504. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-9133.2011.00755.x

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gottschalk, M. (2015). Critical trialogue: The carceral state. Perspectives on Politics, 13(3): 798-801.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gunn, A.J., Sacks, T.K., Jemal, A. (2018). “That’s not me anymore”: Resistance strategies for managing intersectional stigmas for women with substance use and incarceration histories. Qualitative Social Work, 17(4): 490-508. https://doi.org/10.1177/1473325016680282

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gurusami, S. (2017). Working for redemption: Formerly incarcerated Black women and punishment in the labor market. Gender & Society, 31(4): 433-456. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243217716114

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gurusami, S. (2019). Motherwork under the state: The maternal labor of formerly incarcerated Black women. Social Problems, 66(1): 128-143.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gustafson, D. (2013). Unbecoming mothers: The social production of maternal absence. Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Henry, F.A., Wachtendorf, T. (2021). “Yo Bro, What Imma Do Now?”: Understanding the Impact of Disasters on Populations Under Community Supervision. [Manuscript in preparation].

  • Henry, J. (2008). Closing the legal services gap in prisoner reentry programs. Criminal Justice Studies, 21(1): 15-25.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hood, B.J., Gaston, S. (2021). How families respond to the collateral consequences of incarceration and prisoner reentry. Family Relations.

  • Hughes, C.C. (2019). From the long arm of the state to eyes on the street: How poor African American mothers navigate surveillance in the social safety net. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 48(3): 339-376. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891241618784151

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kilgore, J. (2012). Progress or more of the same? electronic monitoring and parole in the age of mass incarceration. Critical Criminology, 21 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-012-9165-0

  • Kruttschnitt, C., Otto, N.B. (2021). Women’s experiences in the revolving door of the criminal justice system: Implications for their imagined futures. Women & Criminal Justice, 31(3): 174-196. https://https://doi.org/10.1080/08974454.2019.1664970

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kurwa, R. (2020): The new man in the house rules: How the regulation of housing vouchers turns personal bonds into eviction liabilities, Housing Policy Debate, https://doi.org/10.1080/10511482.2020.1778056

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leon, C.S., Shdaimah, C.S. (2012). JUSTifying scrutiny: State power in prostitution diversion programs. Journal of Poverty, 16(3): 250-273. https://doi.org/10.1080/10875549.2012.695539

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lerman, A.E. & Weaver, V.M. (2014). Arresting citizenship: The democratic consequences of American crime control. The University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Lin, J. (2010). Parole revocation in the era of mass incarceration. Sociology Compass, 4(12): 999-1010. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9020.2010.00335.x

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lin, J., Grattet, R., Petersilia, J. (2010). “Back-end sentencing” and reimprisonment: Individual, organizational, and community predictors of parole sanctioning decisions*. Criminology, 48(3): 759-795. https://https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-9125.2010.00201

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lorvick, J., Comfort, M.L., Krebs, C.P., Kral, A.H. (2015). Health service use and social vulnerability in a community-based sample of women on probation and parole, 2011-2013. Health & Justice, 3(1): 1-6. https://https://doi.org/10.1186/s40352-015-0024-4

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lupton, D. (2012). ‘Precious cargo’: Foetal subjects, risk and reproductive citizenship, Critical Public Health, 22(3): 329–340. https://doi.org/10.1080/09581596.2012.657612

  • Marshall, T.H. (1950). Citizenship and social class, and other essays. University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maruna, S. (2001). Making Good: How Ex-Convicts Reform and Rebuild Their Lives (1st ed. ed.). American Psychological Association.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Miller, R.J. (2021). Halfway home: Race, punishment, and the afterlife of mass incarceration. Hachette UK.

  • Miller, R.J., Alexander, A. (2016). The price of carceral citizenship: Punishment, surveillance, and social welfare policy in an age of carceral expansion. Michigan Journal of Race and Law, 21(2) https://delcat.on.worldcat.org/oclc/8091738285

  • Miller, R.J., Stuart, F. (2017). "Carceral Citizenship: Race, rights, and responsibility in the age of mass supervision." Theoretical Criminology 21(4): 532-548.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mitchell, M.B., Davis, J.B. (2019). Formerly incarcerated Black mothers matter too: Resisting social constructions of motherhood. The Prison Journal, 99(4): 420-436. https://doi.org/10.1177/0032885519852079

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moran, D. (2015). Carceral geography: Spaces and practices of incarceration. ProQuest Ebook Central. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com

  • Murakawa, N. (2015). Caught: The Prison State and the Lockdown of American Politics. By Marie Gottschalk. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014. 496 p. 35.00

  • Murphy, M.B. (2018). Jim Crow capital: Women and Black freedom struggles in Washington, D.C., 1920–1945. University of North Carolina Press.

  • Myers, A.C. (2011). Forging freedom: Black women and the pursuit of liberty in Antebellum Charleston. The University of North Carolina Press.

  • Myres, J. (2017). Ban the box. Race, Poverty the Environment, 22(1-2): 55-57.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nelson, M. (2011). The first month out: Post-incarceration experiences in New York City. Federal Sentencing Reporter, 24(1): 72-75.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • New York City Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice. (2019). Safely reducing the jail population: Diversion. https://criminaljustice.cityofnewyork.us/programs/safely-reducing-the-jail-population-diversion/. Accessed 1 December 2021.

  • Nichols, T.R., Gringle, M.R., Pulliam, R.M. (2015). "You have to put your children's needs first or you're really not a good mother": Black motherhood and self-care practices. Women, Gender, and Families of Color, 3(2): 165-189. https://doi.org/10.5406/womgenfamcol.3.2.0165

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nicogossian, A., Kloiber, O., Zimmerman, T., Stabile, B., Thomas, K., Terbush, J.W., Doarn, C.R. (2012). Poverty, disparities, disasters, and global burden of disease. World Medical & Health Policy, 4(1): 1–4. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1515/1948-4682.1231

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Norland, S., Mann, P.J. (1984). Being troublesome: women on probation. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 11(1): 115–135. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1177/0093854884011001006

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Oliver, M., & Thomas, S. (1995). Black Wealth/White Wealth: A New Perspective on Racial Inequality. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Omi, M., & Winant, H. (1994). Racial formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s. 2d ed. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Payne, Y.A., Hitchens, B., Chambers, D.L. (2017). “Why I can’t stand out in front of my house?”: Street identified Black youth and young adults’ negative encounters with police. Sociological Forum, 32: 874-895.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pettit, B., Sykes, B.L. (2015). Civil rights legislation and legalized exclusion: Mass incarceration and the masking of inequality. Sociological Forum, 30(S1): 589-611. https://https://doi.org/10.1111/socf.12179

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Phelps, M.S. (2013). The paradox of probation: Community supervision in the age of mass incarceration. Law & Policy, 35(1-2): 51-80. https://https://doi.org/10.1111/lapo.12002

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Phelps, M.S. (2018). Ending mass probation: Sentencing, supervision, and revocation. Future of Children, 28(1): 128–146. https://delcat.on.worldcat.org/oclc/7900677071

  • Pinto, R.M. (2014). Policy advocacy and leadership training for formerly incarcerated women: An empowerment evaluation of ReConnect, a program of the women in prison project, The Correctional Association of New York. Evaluation and Program Planning, 47: 71–81. Accessed 1 December 2021.

  • Rempel, M., Rodriguez, K., Watkins, M. (2019). Supervised Release. https://www.courtinnovation.org/programs/supervised-release. Accessed 15 December 2021.

  • Richie, B.E. (2012). Arrested justice; Black women, violence, and America’s prison nation. NYU Press.

  • Ritchie, A.J. (2017). Invisible no more: Police violence against Black women and women of Color. Beacon Press.

  • Rodriques, E. (2021). Abolition is a collective vision: An interview with Mariame Kaba. The Nation. https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/mariame-kaba-interview-til-we-free-us/. Accessed 15 December 2021.

  • Rumpf, C. (2014). Seeing like a State: Women, incarceration, and social marginality. Ph.D. Thesis. Chicago, IL: Loyola eCommons. http://ecommons.luc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2300&context=luc_diss (accessed August 29, 2017)

  • Sawyer, W., Wagner, P. (2019). Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2019. Prison Policy Initiative. Retrieved Dec 1 2021 from https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2020.html. Accessed 1 November 2021.

  • Seng, M., Lurigio, A.J. (2005). Probation officers' views on supervising women probationers. Women & Criminal Justice, 16(1-2): 65-85.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sered, S.S. (2021). Diminished citizenship in the era of mass incarceration. Punishment & Society.

  • Sered, S.S. & Norton-Hawk, M. (2014). Can't catch a break: Gender, jail, drugs, and the limits of personal responsibility. University of California Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Smith, J.M. (2020). Carceral citizenship as strength: Formerly incarcerated activists, civic engagement and criminal justice transformation. Critical Criminology, 1–18.

  • Soss, J., Fording, R.C., & Schram, S.F. (2011). Disciplining the poor: Neoliberal paternalism and the persistent power of race. University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Stanley, K.V. (2016). Behold, she stands at the door: Reentry, Black women, and the Black church. Journal of Prison Education and Reentry, 3(1)

  • Steinberg, S. [1981] (2001). The ethnic myth: Race, ethnicity, and class in America. 3rd ed. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sudbury, J. (2002). Celling Black bodies: Black women in the global prison industrial complex. Feminist Review, 70(1): 57-74. https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.fr.9400006

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Taxman, F.S. (2016). Justice reinvestment: Extending the framework to non-justice efforts. Federal Sentencing Reporter, 29(1)

  • The National Council. (2021). The national council on currently and formerly incarcerated women and girls. https://www.nationalcouncil.us/. Accessed 1 December 2021.

  • The Sentencing Project. (2019). Incarcerated women and girls. The Sentencing Project. https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/incarcerated-women-and-girls/. Accessed 15 December 2021.

  • Threadcraft, S, & Miller, L.L. (2017). Black women, victimization, and the limitations of the liberal state. Theoretical Criminology 21(4): 478-493.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Uggen, C., Porter, N.D. (2021). Locked out 2020: Estimates of people denied voting rights due to a felony conviction. The Sentencing Project. https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/locked-out-2020-estimates-of-people-denied-voting-rights-due-to-a-felony-conviction/#III.%20Disenfranchisement%20in%202020. Accessed 20 Dec 2021.

  • Velázquez, T., Horowitz, J. (2019). To safely cut incarceration, states rethink responses to supervision violations. The Pew Charitable Trusts. https://www.pewtrusts.org/-/media/assets/2019/07/pspp_states_target_technical_violations_v1.pdf. Accessed 1 Dec 2022.

  • Wacquant, L. (2002). From slavery to mass incarceration: Rethinking the ‘race question’ in the US. New Left Review, 13: 41-60.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weaver, V.M., Lerman, A.E. (2010). Political consequences of the carceral state. The American Political Science Review, 104(4): 817-833.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Welsh, M., Leyva, K. (2020). Collisions of the Personal and the Professional: How Frontline Welfare Workers Manage Carceral Citizens. Affilia, 35(1): 17–33. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886109919866152

  • Williams, J.M. (2020). I am not your felon: Decoding the trauma, resilience, and recovering mothering of formerly incarcerated Black women. Crime Delinquency.

  • Wilson, W.J. [1978] (1980). The declining significance of race: Blacks and changing American institutions. 2d. ed. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Winant, H. (2001). The world is a ghetto: Race and democracy since World War II. New York: Basic.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wing, A.K. (2003). Critical race feminism: A reader (2nd ed. / foreword to 2nd ed. By Richard Delgado; foreword to 1st ed. By Derrick Bell. Ed.). New York University Press.

  • Zinn, M., & Dill, B. (1994). Women of Color in U.S. Society. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, University of Delaware, 18 Amstel Avenue, Newark, DE, 19716, USA

    Felicia A. Henry

Authors
  1. Felicia A. Henry
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Felicia A. Henry.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

I have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Henry, F.A. Racialized, Sexualized, and Criminalized: Carceral Citizenship of Black Women. Crit Crim 31, 635–652 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-023-09695-8

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-023-09695-8

Search

Navigation