Enacting Solidarity and Negotiating Fictive Kinship: The Legal Consciousness of Black Women Working in the Criminal Legal System in Atlanta Open Access
Broun, Rachel (Spring 2023)
Abstract
Black women's relationship to the criminal legal system (CLS) is often framed in terms of the harm the system enacts against Black women. There is a lack of focus on Black women's experiences as agents, such as judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys, within the CLS. This study addresses how Black women act as agents within the CLS through the framework of legal consciousness. Atlanta is a crucial site for Black women working in the CLS. Numerous Black women in various positions work for the district attorney in both counties in Atlanta. Additionally, due to the large Black population and history of high Black leadership within the city, Atlanta is a unique site for Black representation and class dynamics. Through virtual court watching and semi-structured interviews, I analyze Black women working in the CLS in Atlanta's legal consciousness. I interviewed prosecutors, defense attorneys, and re-entry strategists to garner their perceptions of the law of how they developed. Their perceptions center on solidarity and kinship with other Black women working in the system, their communities, and the people they defended or prosecuted. In interviews with prosecutors, themes emerged regarding how the women negotiate kinship with law enforcement officers and their feelings of auntie-ism to the Black men they incarcerate. The women emphasize carceral feminist ethics which focus on protecting the community, especially women. They enact carceral feminism through Legal Aid during courtroom performances. Overall, the interviews reveal the way intimacy enters the courtroom through solidarity and identity. Similarly, defense workers focused on solidarity and fictive kinship within their legal consciousness. Two re-entry specialists who were justice impacted discussed how incarcerated women often find kinship within the prison, especially mother/daughter relationships. Additionally, the women resisted carceral feminist logic in favor of Intersectional Marxism Feminism. They also believed their identity was a deciding factor in how they performed their roles and were perceived. All the women felt their identity entered the courtroom and impacted their work. The perceptions of Black women working in the CLS impact their courtroom performance and impact the function of the CLS throughout the city.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction 1
1.1 Position Statement and Personal Interest 4
1.2 Brief Notes on Terminology and the Black/White Dichotomy 6
Chapter 2: A Review of the Literature on Legal Consciousness and Black Women as Actors in the Legal System 9
2.1 Legal Consciousness 9
2.2 Kinship: Fictive Siblingship, Subjectivity, and Ambivalence 12
2.3 Mass Incarceration of Black Women in the U.S. and Georgia 14
2.4 Black Women Working in the Criminal Legal System 19
Chapter 3: The Middle-Class, Crime, and Leadership in the Black Mecca: A Site Introduction 24
3.1 Dekalb and Fulton: The Counties of Atlanta 24
3.2 A Brief History of Black Leaders and the Middle Class in Atlanta 25
3.3 Black Women as Representatives in the Black Mecca 26
Chapter 4: Methodology 28
Chapter 5: Black Women Working as Prosecutors 31
5.1 Fictive Siblings in Arms and Carceral Play Aunties 31
5.2 Solidarity Through a Carceral Feminist Ethic 36
5.3 Legal Aid: The Language of Mobilization 38
5.4 Inner Workings of Solidarity and Community Protection: Bond Hearings 40
5.5 Legal Consciousness Enacted through Reform 45
5.6 Negotiating Subjectivities: The Legal Consciousness of Black Women Working as Prosecutors 47
Chapter 6: Black Women Working on the Defense Side of the CLS 53
6.1 Fictive Kinship: Embracing Motherhood and Resisting Siblingship 53
6.2 Resisting Carceral Feminism and Engaging in Legal Aid 60
6.3 Defense Workers Negotiating Subjectivity in The Courtroom 67
Chapter 7: Conclusion 70
Bibliography 74
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