Daughters Inside: Toward a Theory of Structural Sexual Violence Against Girls Through Male Mass Incarceration

Indigenous women constitute the fastest growing segment of the prison population. Women inside have disproportionately experienced childhood sexual abuse (CSA). A key protective factor against CSA is living with both biological parents. Imprisonment removes fathers from daughters’ homes. Yet, the link between male incarceration and girls’ risk of CSA remains unexamined. A quantitative exploration of this risk in Aotearoa New Zealand, indicates that the disproportionate incarceration of Māori fathers in the 1980s exposed Māori daughters to a 5.5 times greater CSA risk. A theory of sexual structural violence through male mass incarceration may help explain high CSA victimization rates among Māori girls and incarcerated women, and the sudden increase of young Indigenous women behind bars. More qualitative research is required to verify this empirical exploration.

Social determinants of adult sex ratios and racial/ethnic disparities in transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections in the USA

In Black population centres in the USA, adult sex ratios (ASRs) are strongly female-biased primarily due to high male incarceration and early mortality rates. I explore the system of social determinants that shape these ASRs, and describe their apparent consequences. Evidence suggests that female-biased ASRs play a role, along with racial residential segregation, to increase mixing between core and peripheral members of sexual networks, facilitating transmission of human immunodeficiency virus and other sexually transmitted infections. Unique historical factors underlie Black male incarceration and mortality rates in the USA, making comparisons with other groups or other countries challenging. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Adult sex ratios and reproductive decisions: a critical re-examination of sex differences in human and animal societies’.

Ghost Mapping

This chapter examines how high rates of Black male incarceration, enabled by the war on drugs that swept tens of thousands of Black men into state prisons, exacerbated the HIV/AIDS epidemic among Black Chicagoans. As HIV/AIDS emerged in the early 1980s, prisons became key sites where the disease could hide and spread. The high rates of Black incarceration created a geography of risk—the sociospatial production of HIV infection—for prisoners and the communities they returned to. Although HIV/AIDS could affect anyone, the combination of geographic (segregation and the war on drugs) and structural forces (mass incarceration, premature death, lack of healthcare, and politics) increased the risk in Black Chicago. The risk of transmission of HIV is fourteen times higher in prison. Diseases like small spaces, and the confined space of Illinois prisons encouraged transmission. This was compounded by vexing political realities the returning prisoners faced at home.

Hobos in Heaven

Chapter 2 moves deeper into the U.S. era, chronicling how, between the 1880s and 1910s, authorities in Los Angeles redirected and expanded the city’s carceral capacity. They did so while targeting a particular population: poor white men, namely those popularly disparaged as “tramps” and “hobos” for migrating constantly, working little, and living and loving beyond the bounds of the nuclear family ideal. By 1910, when white men comprised nearly 100 percent of the local jail population, Los Angeles operated one of the largest jail systems in the country. And, as the city rapidly grew during these years, Los Angeles authorities operated a large convict labor program. In turn, white men sentenced to the chain gang cut roads, beautified parks, built schools, and so on. Chapter 2 details the rise of white male incarceration at the turn of the twentieth century and unveils the little-known history of how incarcerated white men built the infrastructure of the growing city. From Sunset Boulevard to the paths winding around Dodger Stadium, city residents still walk, ride, and run on the imprint of their labors.

INCARCERATION, TRANSFORMATION AND AWARENESS IN THE AFRICAN AMERICAN NOVEL

 This article examines the theme of black male incarceration in the African American novel. Black male incarcerated characters are frequently presented as the most socially aware characters in the novel, in spite of their isolation. In different African American novels, black male incarcerated characters experience a transformation as a result of their incarceration that leads to a heightened awareness of their marginalisation as black men. Because of their compromised agency in incarceration, these characters are not able to express black masculinity in traditional ways. Using novels by Richard Wright, James Baldwin, John A. Williams and Ernest Gaines, I argue that black male incarcerated characters use their heightened awareness as an alternative method of expressing black masculinity.