Description
- Abstract:
- This thesis examines the construction of low-income Black motherhood as criminal in the United States through policy means, using South Carolina as a case study. The paper begins with an examination of the social policies during the Lyndon B. Johnson administration’s War on Poverty, and traces the War’s impact on subsequent federal and state-level policies in South Carolina during the United States’ War on Welfare and War on Drugs. This thesis argues that this legal framework for criminalizing Black mothers has gone on to become a framework for criminalizing the prenatal behaviors of other mothers of marginalized demographics in the United States. The arguments presented in this thesis are developed using historical and legal analysis, along with critical race theory and feminist legal scholarship as theoretical frameworks.
- Notes:
- Senior thesis (AB)--Brown University, 2026
- Concentration: Gender and Sexuality Studies
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Citation
Willow Veda Stewart,
"Targeting Mothers: An Examination of the Criminalization of Black Motherhood in the United States through the Lens of South Carolina"
(2026).
Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women Theses and Dissertations.
Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library.
https://doi.org/10.26300/jrq8-hz32
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Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women Theses and Dissertations
Theses and Dissertations for the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women department....