“The Eugenic History of Habitual Offender Laws”

The title of this post is the title of this new paper authored by Daniel Loehr now available via SSRN. Here is its abstract:

Habitual offender laws are widely understood to have emerged from the toughon-crime movement in the late 1900s.  That understanding is inaccurate.  This Article argues that habitual offender laws did not emerge from the tough-oncrime movement in the late 1900s but instead from the eugenics movement in the early 1900s. Habitual offender laws were designed to prevent “habitual offenders” from reproducing and spreading their “type.”  They were sterilization by another means.  This Article documents that history and in doing so corrects a longstanding misconception about the origin and intent of habitual offender laws-with implications for the habitual offender laws that are currently in force in 49 states.