Many blues songs reference jail, prison, and even capital punishment. From Bessie Smith’s “Send Me to the ’Lectric Chair” to Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie’s “Joliet Bound,” blues document a history of African American incarceration. We will explore the legal system as it developed after Reconstruction that aimed to put the Black population to work for the state and for powerful individuals. Discussion will include vagrancy statutes, convict lease, chain gangs, and debt peonage as reflected in the blues.