Eugenics

Eugenics is the certainty in the prospect of enlightening human species abilities especially through dispiriting production by people having genetic flaws, or acknowledged to have unattractive characters which is denoted as negative eugenics (Chappell, 2019). Through eugenics, people with appropriate inheritable personalities which is known as positive eugenics have been encouraged to reproduce. The main idea of eugenics is to do away with those who are deemed as being less important in the society, in order to only remain with the important. On the other hand, eugenics has been viewed as encouraging racism, owing to the fact that its main agenda is to eliminate inferior races hence remaining with superior races. Likewise, the US prison had initially adopted eugenics in its prison systems, in order to reduce breeding among criminals. For that reason, this paper addresses ways through which eugenics ideas have been adopted in the criminal systems in the twenty first century.

In 1907, eugenics was used as a means of controlling crime in the US, whereby criminals would be sterilised as a means of discontinuing their generation. This law was adopted in order to control increased crime rates in urban areas of the US (Cohen, 2016). Criminals would be sterilised, since they were less significant in the society, in order to reduce the reproduction of criminals in the country. Nonetheless, in 1942 the sterilization was illegitimized in the US, bringing to an end the use of sterilization as a means of controlling the society (Cohen, 2016). In as much as the law against forced sterilization was IL legitimized, in the twenty first century, prisoners are still being sterilized in against the rule of law.

In a recent study in the US 148 female prisoners in California received tubal proceedings without their approval in 2013 (Chappell, 2019). Similarly, a judge in Tennessee offered prisoners a reduction of their sentence by 30 days on the condition that they underwent an everlasting birth control process. Men would be allowed to undergo vasectomies, whereas women would undergo Nexplanon which is an implant for a 4 year birth control. This was however according to the will of the prisoners, but it is also a means of forcing prisoners into sterilization. This is so because most prisoners would opt for a reduction of their sentences, for sterilization. Correspondingly, in 2009, the court legalized sterilization throughout the US which included a mother at the age of 21 years whose tubes were tied as part of her trial for marijuana possession (Chappell, 2019). In addition, a man allegedly opted for vasectomy for a reduced child endangerment sentence in the year 2014. 

The courts have consequently been on the forefront for issuing sterilization as means of reduced sentences for criminals. This is basically a new form of eugenics in practice, even though the victim is not coerced into undergoing sterilization (Bashford & Levine, 2010). Most inmates in the US have therefore undergone sterilization without their knowledge, whereby mothers who give birth to physically challenged children are sterilized in the hospital and the matter remains a secret. Moreover, in California, women inmates who had initially served prison terms, were targeted for sterilization since they were deemed as being a threat to the state security. Henceforth, it was necessary for them to be sterilized in order to control their reproduction thus cubing the spread of criminal activities within the society.

Reference

Chappell, B. (2019). California's Prison Sterilizations Reportedly Echo Eugenics Era:

The Two-Way. npr. Retrieved from: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/07/09/200444613/californias-prison-sterilizations-reportedly-echoes-eugenics-era

Cohen, A. (2016). Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American eugenics, and the sterilization of Carrie Buck.

Bashford, A., & In Levine, P. (2010). The history of eugenics. Oxford [etc.: Oxford University Press.