In perhaps the most brazen proof that the concept of
eugenics is still alive and well today, mass incarceration is stealing the reproductive rights of thousands, including already marginalized minority groups.
Definition — Eugenics
Eugenics is a wildly inaccurate, dangerous scientific theory that humans can be improved through selective breeding of populations. It has been used historically to justify forced sterilization, institutionalization, and systematic targeting of poor, disabled, and minority communities — and its rhetorical DNA is visible in how certain prosecutors and judges still speak about and treat defendants today.
Primary Source — American Journal of Public Health, 2020
Hayes, Sufrin, and Perritt (2020) published a study in the
American Journal of Public Health documenting how incarcerated individuals’ basic reproductive rights are systematically denied. Finding this study feels both vindicating and maddening. It echoes a complaint I’ve been quite vocal about in the past: state-sanctioned population control.
The Three Tenets of Reproductive Justice
From Hayes, Sufrin & Perritt — AJPH 2020
Mass incarceration, by its very nature, compromises and undermines bodily autonomy and the capacity for incarcerated people to make decisions about their reproductive well-being and bodies; this is done through institutionalized racism and is disproportionately done to the bodies of women of color.
Hayes, C.M., Sufrin, C., & Perritt, J.B. (2020). American Journal of Public Health, 110(S1), S21–S24.
This violates the most basic tenets of reproductive justice — the right to have a child, not to have a child, and to parent the children you have with dignity and in safety.
Tenet 01
The right to have a child
Tenet 02
The right not to have a child
Tenet 03
The right to parent the children you have — with dignity and in safety
In a time where reproductive choice is so hotly contested, there should be more emphasis and disdain for the not-at-all-subtle racism and outright denial of human rights that “tough on crime” prosecutors and judges across the country engage in.
I am by no means the first person to sound the alarm on mass incarceration as a modern-day form of eugenics. I can’t help but wonder how people on either side of the reproductive rights conversation feel about this.
To me, it is incredibly sad that more people are not versed in history to recognize it and vote out any ignorant, harmful elected officials that so readily embrace these horrific policies of a bygone era.
It Comes Out in How They Speak
It comes out over and over again in the way certain prosecutors and judges at multiple levels of government speak to and about defendants and treat them as less than human:
Michigan Judicial Misconduct — Documented Cases of Dehumanizing Conduct
All of those cases were in Michigan, by the way.
This Is Not New — Meet Richard Dugdale
Historical Figure · Civil War Era
Richard Dugdale — Prison “Reformer” and Eugenicist
Civil War era · Prison reform advocate, eugenicist
These three “professionals” are not at all far away from Richard Dugdale, a civil war-era prison “reformer.” In actuality, Dugdale was a eugenicist who advocated for forcibly sterilizing the poor and institutionalizing whomever he deemed “unfit,” all in the name of “bettering” the economy and keeping society “safe.” The language has changed. The mechanism has not.
On the Rhetoric — Then and Now
Anthony Bradley, writing for the Acton Institute in 2014, drew a direct line between early American eugenicist ideology and the logic of mass incarceration — documenting how Progressive-era reformers sought to institutionalize and sterilize those deemed biologically “unfit,” using language focused on protecting the economy and keeping society safe from traits like “pauperism, laziness, promiscuity, and delinquency.”
Does this sound familiar? Well it should, because it’s the exact same rhetoric that these people are getting away with over 200 years later. And they’ve tricked voters into
paying them to engage in this behavior.
What the Data Actually Shows
We have mounds and MOUNDS of data, solid irrefutable evidence even, that mass incarceration:
1. doesn’t deter crime, and
2. doesn’t make anyone even a little bit safer.2
So that leaves us with what? Individuals making a lot of money off of prison industries and politicians, elected officials, and politically-appointed judges denying reproductive freedom.
Call the spade a spade. At best mass incarceration is government-funded economic oppression; at worst, it’s modern-day eugenics.
References
1 Hayes, C. M., Sufrin, C., & Perritt, J. B. (2020). Reproductive Justice Disrupted: Mass Incarceration as a Driver of Reproductive Oppression.
American Journal of Public Health, 110(S1), S21–S24.
https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2019.305407
2 Obus, E. A., Pequet, A., Cristian, C. R., Garfinkle, A., Pinto, C. A., & Gray, S. A. O. (2024). Disrupting the family stress-proximal process: A scoping review of interventions for children with incarcerated parents.
Children and Youth Services Review, 161, 107604.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2024.107604
Pre-Order Now · Clutch Justice
So You Want to Be a Citizen Detective
Rita Williams’ guide to investigating the systems that affect your life — public records, court filings, and the paper trails institutions leave behind.
Pre-Order ?
Related Coverage — Structural Harm, Racial Disparity, and the Human Cost
How to cite: Williams, R. [Rita]. (2024, December 1). Reproductive Justice Disrupted: How Mass Incarceration Undermines Bodily Autonomy. Clutch Justice. https://clutchjustice.com/2024/12/01/reproductive-justice-disrupted-mass-incarceration-as-a-driver-of-reproductive-oppression/
