concurrent to American society; but, the criminal justice’s usage of mass incarceration affronts this American idealism. Due to big business standing to gain from African American labor, the usage of mass incarceration is reminiscent to American slavery which encourages an inequality which society does not acknowledge. Mass incarceration is the racial caste system which has resulted in millions of African Americans imprisoned. Much of black men in urban areas are incumbered with criminal records which deprives
widespread societal and economic damage caused by America’s now-40-year experiment in locking up vast numbers of its citizens. (The Editorial Board) The standard way of thinking about mass incarceration has it that mass incarceration is putting a stop to crimes. Today it has become common to dismiss the truth about mass incarceration. The Editorial Board of New York Times Magazine acknowledge that America`s imprisonment population has progressed to about 2.2 million (the Editorial Board). The Editorial Board
hardship in families of color and urban communities.1,2Since 1972, the number of people incarcerated has increased 5-fold without a comparable decrease in crime or drug use.1,3 In fact, the decreased costs of opiates and stimulants and the increased potency of cannabis might lead one to an opposing conclusion.4 Given the politics of the war on drugs, skyrocketing incarceration rates are deemed a sign of success, not failure. I don’t totally agree with the book (I think linking crime and black struggle
discusses the underlying racial disparities that have lead to a mass incarceration in the United States. He states that incarceration rates have increased by a substantial amount. The race and class disparities viewed in impromesment are very large and class disparities have grown by a dramatic amount. In his book he argues that an increase in mass incarceration occured due to a significant increase in crime. The increase in mass incarceration can also be correlated with urban street crime that proliferated
is that of institutionalized racism, specifically in the form of mass incarceration, and what kinds of effects mass incarceration has on a community. In this paper, I will briefly examine a range of issues surrounding the mass incarceration of black and Latino males, the development of a racial undercaste because of rising incarceration rates, women and children’s involvement and roles they attain in the era of mass incarceration, and the economic importance that the prison system has due to its
Alexander’s The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness raises awareness on the American racial caste system, heavily due to the crisis of high imprisonment of black men. As a former director for ACLU’s Racial Justice Project, a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, and currently an associate professor of law at Ohio State University, Alexander appears informative on the issue, though she wasn’t always. Although Alexander is a black woman, she admits she didn’t
the prison system. Racial inequality in the criminal justice system is often ignored because it does not affect most people. If there is to be a change in racial inequality, this issue is one that must be addressed. According to Inequality and Incarceration, “497 out of 100,000 Americans are imprisoned.” This means there is “less than one percent of people” in the United States that are imprisoned. This may seem like an insignificant amount. According to Sentencing Project.org “Racial disparity
in The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, arguing how mass incarceration has replaced slavery and Jim Crow to reduce black Americans to a second class status. Through
president. Some might argue as long as there are exceptional blacks there are no excuses for all blacks to succeed. Although, Michelle Alexander’s book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color Blindness, challenges American’s colorblindness by bringing to light the mass incarceration of African Americans. Jim Crow laws are no longer legal, but there is a new way to segregate: mass incarceration. The mass incarceration of blacks has created a racial underclass; a population with second-class
the Civil Rights Clinics. Alexander published the book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. In it, she argues that systemic racial discrimination in the United States has resumed following the Civil Rights Movement's gains; the resumption is embedded in the US War on Drugs and other governmental policies and is having devastating social consequences.