ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to compare the treatment of black women with those of black men and white women to find out if black women were faced with similar or significantly different problems in the criminal justice system under different historically specific ideological formations. It attempts to demonstrate that the political economies of plantation slavery, colonialism, neo-colonialism, and ‘internal colonialism’ manifested in their specific legal systems, the punishment, victimisation and repression of black women in particular and poor black people in general. The chapter argues that, in some cases, black women are treated differently from black men and white women and in some other cases, they are treated similarly. The judges appointed a commission that investigated Le Jeune’s plantation and confirmed that the allegation was true. The two women were found to be still barred and chained, to be still alive though their elbows and legs were decomposing, and to have made no confession of any conspiracy to poison.
