Redlining In The United States

In the novel, The New Jim Crow Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, author and criminal rights lawyer, Michelle Alexander emphasizes her overall thesis as our nation is currently in a state of racism, prejudice, and mass incarceration, and it is ultimately turning back time to the years of Jim Crow. Throughout her novel, she analyzes series of significant civil rights cases that support her thesis, and describe ramifications that these cases had on her thesis. In my critical analysis, I will discuss the importance of Alexanders thesis describe several turning point cases and the ramifications these cases had on her thesis, and give my own argument of why I overall agree with Alexanders novel.

Mass Incarceration is a huge problem in United States culture. No other country in the world incarcerates its population the way that America does. “The U.S. incarcerates more people than any country in the world – both per capita and in terms of total people behind bars. The U.S. has less than 5 percent of the world’s population, yet it has almost 25 percent of the world’s incarcerated population.” Worse yet the majority of the incarcerated individuals belong to a minority group despite not participating in illegal activity any more frequently than their white counterparts. Is the United States criminal justice system racist and if so what is the cause behind this racism. After the end of slavery, many southern black Americans traveled to the north to escape endless violence and discrimination. In the south they could only find low paying field jobs whereas in the northern cities there were steady factory jobs promised as well as the hope that discrimination could be escaped. The northerners while against slavery were not egalitarian and were not in favor of hoards of black Americans surging into their cities and taking jobs away from the white working poor. The need for social control by white Americans only grew with the population of black Americans living in the cities and working in the factories. The rhetoric of “law and order” first came about in the late 1950s as white opposition to the Civil Rights Movement was encouraged by southern governors and law enforcement.

Once upon a time, Americans could proudly say that America was the land of freedom and opportunity. As the Pledge of Allegiance states, “One nation under God, Indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” However, under the current criminal justice system, more and more people lose their liberties because of the crimes they have committed. According to Roy Walmsley, a consultant of the United Nations and Associate of the International Center for prison studies, “In October 2013, the incarceration rate of the United States of America was the highest in the world, at 716 per 100,000 of the national population. While the United States represent about 4.4 percent of the world 's population, it houses

Racism in the United States has not remained the same over time since its creation. Racism has shifted, changed, and shaped into unrecognizable ways that fit into the fabric of the American society to render it nearly invisible to the majority of Americans. Michelle Alexander, in her book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness shatters this dominantly held belief. The New Jim Crow makes a reader profoundly question whether the high rates of incarceration in the United States is an attempt to maintain blacks as an underclass. Michelle Alexander makes the assertion that “[w]e have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it” using the criminal justice system and colorblind rhetoric. (Alexander 2). The result is a population of Black and Latino men who face barriers and deprivation of rights as did Blacks during the Jim Crow era. Therefore, mass incarceration has become the new Jim Crow.

In the book The New Jim Crow: “Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” is written by Michelle Alexander talks about issues the racial caste and mass incarceration in the United States. Michelle Alexander argues that even Jim crow is over, but there’s still injustices in people of color communities. In her book “The New Jim Crow”, Alexander describes many social problems make African American people controlled by institutions. The author compares Jim Crow with mass incarceration is a form of controlling black Americans as Jim Crow law. Through Michelle Alexander's book, we can understand her argument that mass incarceration is a new form of legal discrimination just like Jim Crow law. The criminal justice system is biased toward the powers of privileges. Mass incarceration in America is “the new Jim Crow”, a new form of social control because the racial caste system segregates people away from mainstream society.

Racism effects the the high incarceration rates according to Michelle Alexander, the author of “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. This scholar writes about how the civil rights movement has been taken back by the mass incarceration of black Americans in the war on drugs. Alexander also explains how the severe consequences that these black men carry on after being incarcerated, for example not being able to get school grants or housing. The author continues to argues that all it takes is a major social movement to end americas new caste system and that it is inhumane to treat any race less then the other. Agreeing with Alexander, I believe that every race deserves equal opportunity and that high mass incarceration rates are the way they are because of racism by the criminal justice system.

Imagine if someone was able to change others perceptions on the American criminal justice system? Michelle Alexander was able to accomplish that by altering some people 's entire perception on the American criminal justice system by focusing on our most pressing civil right issues of our time for some of those who did read her book "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration In The Age of Colorblindness." Michelle Alexander stated that "The most despised in America is not gays, transgenders, nor even illegal immigrants - it is criminals." That was an important quote since the stereotypical criminal in our racially divided America in most cases are those of color also known as blacks. This is why the criminal justice system in the United States promotes the mass incarceration of blacks that can be seen through high number of African-Americans going to jail for drugs compared to any other race, the high percentage rates of African-American that are incarcerated, the amount of time that is given to African-Americans compared to any other race in the United States.

Different areas of the private sector took control of the racial segregation. Areas such as real estate, banks, labor, and toxic waste locations have participated in some way to continue the segregation and inferiority of people of color. “African Americans and other communities of color are often victims of land-use decision making that mirrors the power arrangements of the dominant society” (Bullard [1994]2004:269). The land-use decisions are used by the real estate industry. The real estate industry along with the bank industry have worked together in order to make it almost impossible for people of color to acquire their own homes. When individuals of color do obtain their own homes the real estate industry corrals them all into one zone. Then the banks charge homeowners in these zones high interest rates on the mortgages needed to maintain their home ownership. “Zoning is probably the most widely applied mechanism to regulate urban land use in the United States” (Bullard [1994]2004:269). When people of color are corralled into a neighborhood the quality of the neighborhood is diminished. The

Redlining emerged from the thoughts and ideas of racism and segregation. This includes race and financial status and separates Caucasians and minorities even more. Inequality amongst race in our society creates negative effects in the lives of every individual that is part of the minority group. A never-ending cycle that will affect generations to come filled with emotional abuse. Knowing that job opportunities and home owning for minorities will never be equal with Caucasians. It is unethical knowing that it is extremely difficult or close to impossible to achieve the so called “American Dream” if your skin color does not fit the criteria. It is important to understand that redlining is just another term for social profiling or social discrimination.

Redlining is the practice of denying services, either directly or through selectively raising prices, to residents of certain areas based on the racial or ethnic makeups of those areas (Wikipedia). Redlining refers to the actual act of drawing red lines on maps to denote where banks were not going to invest in because they are a liability to the bank. This leads into the term being used to describe the discrimination against other people normally due to race or sex. Redlining is a disgusting idea that reminds us of the old days of inequality and it is saddening that people discriminate against others because they have a different skin tone.

It was 1947, eight years before Mississippi lynched Emmett Till. The Great Migration was a mass exodus of six million African Americans out of the South that spanned most of the 20th century. Blacks did not journey north seeking better wages and work. Rather, they were fleeing the acquisitive warlords of the South. They were seeking the protection of the law. From the 1930-60s Blacks across the country had no access to legitimate home mortgages. This happened through means both legal and extralegal. In 1935, the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB) asked Home Owners ' Loan Corporation (HOLC) to look at 239 cities and create "residential security maps." The purpose was to show the level of security for real-estate investments in each city. The resulting redlining caused a large increase in residential racial segregation and urban decay. Redlining denies services to residents of certain areas based on racial or ethnic criteria. John McKnight, a sociologist and community activist, coined the term in the late 1960s. The term comes from the practice of marking a red line on a map to delineate the area where banks would not invest. In addition to redlining, many Chicago Whites employed other measures to keep their neighborhoods segregated and to discourage non-white home buyers, including restrictive covenants and even bombings. Further, such local measures received broader support, including from a prominent national real estate

A determined effort to end the effective redlining of Native homelands began in the second half of the 1990s, with many promises made and some actual progress. However, much of that progress seems to have evaporated in the implosion of the mortgage market. Most redlining was targeted towards African Americans.

Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness outlines how the criminal justice system has systematically designed new methods of discriminating against African Americans. The book advocates for racial justice, specifically, for African Americans and contends they [African Americans] were targeted and subsequently incarcerated, by white voters and public officials, through the War on Drugs campaign. President Reagan and his Administration exploited racial hostility or resentment for his own political gain and administered cash grants to law enforcement agencies that made drug enforcement a priority. “Nothing has contributed more to the systematic mass incarceration of people of color in the

Social mobility is a measure of how children’s social and economic position in adulthood compare to that of their parents. A major factor that many people believe can impact social mobility is education. However, I believe the impact of education is largely determined by the quality of education, which today is determined by where you live. Therefore, systems that discriminate against certain individuals based their neighborhood, largely impact their ability to obtain a good education, and as a result limit the extent of their social mobility. An example of this is redlining, coined by sociologist John McKnight, to describe a discriminatory practice, by which banks and insurance companies refuse loans to certain people based on where they live, because the geographic area is deemed as poor or financially risky. The areas they refused to invest in were predominantly neighborhoods of color, marked by redline separating the areas that were okay to invest in from neighborhoods that were “risky”. The implications of this system reinforced a cycle of decline in these areas due to business’s inability to prosper as a result of being blocked from obtaining loans. I want to make it clear that the system of redlining that I am describing is still alive and well in the present day, but takes on a slightly different form due to technology. In this paper, I will examine educational-redlining, as a means of social immobility to explore the relationship between the sociological concepts

The typical parole practices that are used in today’s correctional system are supervision and rules for releases. When it comes down to it according to provisions of a statute (mandatory release/mandatory parole), there are many types of post-custody conditional supervision, or in other words the result of a sentence to a term of supervised release. (“Bureau of justice statistics (BJS) - community corrections (probation and parole),” 2016) “In the federal system, a term of supervised release is a sentence to a fixed period of supervision in the community that follows a sentence to a period of incarceration in federal prison, both of which are ordered at the time of