Black Men and Credible Ties: Racialized Discretion, Surveillance, and Compliance in the Shadow Carceral State

• In Event: 30662 - Section on Crime, Law, and Deviance Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 7: Carceral State

Abstract

Child support enforcement remains a key site of racialized governance, where poor, noncustodial Black fathers face the persistent threat of incarceration. This paper examines the labor of community-based organization (CBO) representatives who act as intermediaries in child support enforcement. Positioned as both racial advocates and institutional gatekeepers, these representatives serve as "credible ties," leveraging their legitimacy to influence magistrates’ incarceration decisions. While framed as social service workers, their labor mirrors that of probation officers and parole agents—except their authority is derived from Black community institutions rather than the state.
Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in a CBO operating within child support courts, this study introduces “redemptive compliance” to describe how Black fathers must meet legal mandates while performing credibility and rehabilitation to be granted leniency. CBO representatives function as credibility brokers, determining which fathers have sufficiently "proven" themselves through job searches, program participation, and other forms of compliance. Their discretionary labor—though often unacknowledged—shapes incarceration outcomes, reinforcing a racialized system where economic precarity becomes a pathway to punishment.

This paper builds on Victor Ray’s (2019) theory of racialized organizations by positioning CBOs as intermediaries navigating both state power and community advocacy. While CBO representatives provide fathers with resources and legal advocacy, they also navigate white institutional expectations of compliance, legitimacy, and redemption. Their credibility is contingent on their ability to translate Black fathers’ compliance in ways that align with court expectations, situating them between advocacy and enforcement.
CBOs advocate for fathers while also performing bureaucratic labor and courtroom advocacy, ensuring fathers remain legible to legal institutions. Their role requires emotional management, strategic negotiation, and enforcement of behavioral expectations. Though framed as community organizations, CBOs function as bureaucratic extensions of the carceral system, engaging in procedural oversight and institutional negotiation.

Author

• Stephane Daniel Andrade, Vassar College