Abstract

This chapter examines the history of lawsLaw surrounding chicken theftChicken theft in the American South, arguing that harsh state punishment of this act served as a form of racist structural violence targeted at the region’s African American population. The paper frames this discussion around a 1929 Missouri General Assembly bill that called for the “sterilization of persons convicted of murder, rape, chicken stealing, automobile theft, highway robbery, bombing, mental defectives, epeleptics [sic], and persons afflicted with venereal diseasesDisease”. Although singling out chicken stealing for such extreme punishment alongside several violent crimes may seem strange to modern eyes, its presence is no aberration. A survey of chicken theftChicken theft criminalization across three phases of American history reveals that the lawsLaw punishing this act frequently utilized and reinforced racist stereotypes associating African Americans with chicken theftChicken theft as a way to target and control this group. State-sanctioned punishments included: slavery’s unrestricted physical violence; ReconstructionReconstruction’s disenfranchisementDisenfranchisement of convicted poultry thieves; and ultimately Progressive Era attempts at sterilization. This chapter proposes that, while specific chicken theftChicken theft punishments shifted in accordance with their eras’ politically acceptable forms of racialised violence, they are unified by their discriminatory intent and application.