Presumed criminal: Black youth and the justice system in postwar New York

Abstract

The common law tradition and prescriptive philosophy of parens patriae is an underlying justification for juvenile justice systems in the United States. Under this framework, the sovereign is the "father figure" charged with caring for its subjects, which include accounting for poor, destitute, and otherwise guardianless children. These paternalistic values are found both within and beyond juvenile justice contexts. 1 Consistent with the early origins of institutional corrections in the United States, these rehabilitative and redemptionist frameworks were created by White people to account for the wayward or deviant souls of other White subjects. In Presumed Criminal: Black Youth and the Justice System in Postwar New York, Carl Suddler (2019) empirically documents how Black youth in New York City were never subject to an ethos of care or rehabilitation that ostensibly dominated the foundational purpose of juvenile justice institutions. Instead, "black youths faced a more punitive justice system by the postwar era that restricted their social mobility and categorically branded them as criminal-a stigma they continue to endure" (p. 5). The text contributes to carceral studies by showing how Black youth were historically criminalized in Harlem and how the events in New York City can help us understand unresolved conflicts and contradictions in race, criminalization, and justice policy.