"Willie Horton Syndrome": A Case Study in the Transformation of United States Penal Culture

This thesis analyzes the transformation from a rehabilitative ethos of punishment to a penal system focused on stigmatization and incapacitation of the criminal. In order to understand this shift in penal policies, practices,... [ view full abstract ]

This thesis analyzes the transformation from a rehabilitative ethos of punishment to a penal system focused on stigmatization and incapacitation of the criminal. In order to understand this shift in penal policies, practices, and sentiments, I examine the role of the visual in creating and sustaining our collective understandings of criminality. First, I explore the origins of the visual with the penal system. The contemporaneous rise of criminology and photography in the late nineteenth century facilitated the growth of a state apparatus concerned with understanding the criminal so as to better manage and regulate the criminal class. Second, I examine the case of Willie Horton, whose mug shot was circulated in the 1988 presidential election by Republican candidate George H.W. Bush as a way to portray his Democratic opponent Michael Dukakis as “soft on crime.” I conduct a content analysis of New York Times articles mentioning Willie Horton in order to track the lasting power of Horton’s image and to understand the role that Horton played in transforming how we treat criminals. I find that while the earliest iteration of the criminal photograph was used to better know the criminal, Horton’s mug shot rebirthed the idea that Blackness and criminality are inextricably linked, that the victim warrants protection at all costs, and that the criminal cannot be reformed and, thus, deserves incapacitation.