Slavery’s Legacy of White Carceral Advantage in the South

Abstract

Legacy of slavery scholarship has experienced a renaissance as of late, with researchers across numerous disciplines focusing increased attention on the long-term ramifications of America’s original sin. Using quantitative methods these researchers have found that where slavery was deeply entrenched—particularly in the South—racial inequality and Black disadvantage across numerous domains is exacerbated. While this research has contributed enormously to understanding slavery’s legacy in the South and its nefarious consequences for Black communities, little attention has been paid to the other side of slavery’s legacy of inequality—notably, the many ways White populations continue to benefit from slavery. The state’s carceral apparatus represents a significant area of such advantage and, yet, despite the genealogical linkage historians and socio-legal scholars have drawn between the two institutions, few studies empirically examine slavery’s enduring effects on modern incarceration. Using quantitative methods, this article examines whether—and, if so, how—greater slavery levels in Southern counties generates carceral advantage for contemporary White populations. Where slavery levels were once greater, White populations living in those same areas today—relative to White populations living in areas where slavery was less deeply entrenched—have accrued significant formal social control benefits in the form of lower jail incarceration rates. This effect, however, operates indirectly. Mediation analyses reveal the carceral privilege White populations enjoy in higher slave-dependent locales is generated through the advantageous shaping of White social and economic outcomes.