1980s
The 1980s marked a dramatic expansion of the carceral industrial complex, and a rise in incarceration rates across the country. Carceral institutions become driving vehicles for eugenic ideologies, which manifested themselves in increased policing of communities of color. In 1984, Ronald Reagan signed the Comprehensive Crime Control Act. This piece of legislation, a watershed moment in the War on Drugs, marked a significant expansion of criminal penalties for drug possession and trafficking. The rate of incarceration in the United States increased from 139 per 100,000 individuals in 1980 to 297 per 100,000 individuals in 1990, with this increase being disproportionately concentrated within Black communities.
In the 1980s, the rise of the AIDS epidemic devastated queer communities and communities of color. Their bodies became increasingly stigmatized and pathologized by government officials and public health authorities. While the epidemic started in 1981, President Reagan publicly acknowledged the AIDS epidemic for the first time in 1985. Since 1989, the rate of HIV incidence in Black communities has continuously surpassed that of white communities. The racialization of HIV/AIDS was also implemented into immigration policy, with the introduction of the 1987 HIV “travel ban.” The federal government’s response to the disease saw not only the pathologizing of queer communities and communities of color, but also marked a pointed refusal on the part of the federal government to acknowledge the disproportionate harm being endured by these communities. Communities most impacted by HIV/AIDS knew that they had to support each other and create means of survival that did not depend on the State’s resources. Activist groups like ACT-UP fought back, demanding that their lives were not disposable. The harm reduction movement was born out of the 1980s, asserting that people who use drugs, queer people, and people living with HIV/AIDS all are human beings who deserve to live. They began running underground needle exchange programs, support groups, and other mutual aid networks to keep each other alive and contest the eugenic logic that pervaded the stigmatization of AIDS.
“At the heart of polices that deny poor women the ability to have children is the idea that they do not deserve to shape their own lives and families. The fact that they cannot afford the best conditions and education for their children does not give regulating bodies the right to regulate their bodies.”
The myth of the “welfare queen” continued to gain traction. Reagan had helped popularize the trope during his 1976 presidential campaign, referencing the alleged case of a Chicago woman who was rumored to have obtained $150,000 through welfare fraud. As Reagan entered office, he increasingly reinforced the links between social welfare and parental failure and translated those discursive attacks into policy. Reagan is estimated to have made approximately 22 billion dollars in cuts to welfare programs, all while dramatically increasing military spending. The image of welfare recipients as morally corrupt and incapable continued to gain traction, paving the way for the increased policing of low-income communities as well as communities of color. Welfare reform policies that would take hold in the 1990s, such as the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, codified the surveillance of welfare recipients. Several of these policies, both at the state and federal level, restricted access to welfare along lines of prior incarceration and medical history, discouraged reproduction among families already on welfare, and paved the way for the rise of the “home visit.”