The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 (amended in 1850) guaranteed the rights of a terrorist (slaveholder) to “re-kidnap” escaped Africans. The U.S. Congress passed a legal mechanism for Africans to be under surveillance, tracked and forcibly returned to American concentration camps, commonly known as plantations. An estimated half a million people escaped to gain freedom, a ratio of about one in five Africans – mirroring the contemporary rate of Black incarceration in the 21st century. Many Africans left the United States altogether for safe havens that included Canada and Mexico.
With 1 out of 5 Black men victimized by a hyper-vigilant criminal justice system and a Black community assigned the role of filling vacant “for-profit” prison cells this initiative amounts to an extrajudicial open season on the Black family.
If Mayor Bowser’s 2015 Fugitive Slave Act is implemented, it would bring back the repressive and racist 18th Century philosophical and applied notion that once a “slave,” always a “slave.” The Washington, DC version will be “once an offender, always an offender,” devaluing and dismissing the basic principle that an offender found guilty and serves their time are never free from their debt to society. The Mayor’s new draconian initiative trashes our constitutional rights and doesn’t allow for second chances. Let’s not forget that it took America 150 years to incarcerate its first million, but just 12 years to incarcerate its second million.
Increasing, the police’s ability to search and detain parolees or those on probation will add another layer of terror to the already terrorized Black community. Added to this travesty of justice will be the collateral damage to family members caught in the crossfire.