The New Jim Crow Book Report

Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, explained how our treatment of criminals has created a new racial caste system, and the only way to make change is by massive social change and Civil Rights movement. The criminal laws often focus on psychoactive drugs used by the minority populations. Minorities are disproportionately targeted, arrested, and punished for drug offenses. For instance, Black, Latino, Native American, and many Asian were portrayed as violent, traffickers of drugs and a danger to society. Surveillance was focused on communities of color, also immigrants, the unemployed, the undereducated, and the homeless, who continue to be the main targets of law enforcement efforts to fight the war on drugs. Although African Americans comprise only 12.2 percent of the population and 13 percent of drug users, they make up 38 percent of those arrested for drug offenses and 59 percent of those convicted of drug offenses causing critics to call the war on drugs the “New Jim Crow”(drug policy). The drug

After getting the public support for his campaign, America saw an unprecedented rise in its incarceration rate, particularly among African Americans. The “ War on Drugs ” has had a disparate impact on the black community even though blacks and whites use drugs at approximately the same levels. This is achieved through a myriad of formal and informal practices. African-Americans are targeted and prosecuted at a much higher rate even though they are not statistically any likelier to abuse or sell drugs than the white population.

When you think of mass incarceration it is imperative to look at the causes that affect minorities. One major thing that produced an increase in mass incarceration is the war on drugs. The war on drugs has impacted minorities in a major way. The war on drugs pushed policymakers to structure laws that were targeting underprivileged individual mainly minorities group. In addition, “The deinstitutionalisation of people with mental illnesses, and punitive sentencing policies such as three-strike laws (mandating life imprisonment for third offences of even relatively minor felonies) and mandatory minimum sentences for specific offence, even for some first0time offenders undoubtedly helped to both launch mass incarceration and keep it going” (Wilderman, & Wang, 2017, p. 1466). The war on drugs came during a time when crack cocaine became widespread in the black community. The popularity of crack cocaine became prevalent and accessible for many low-income individuals. Therefore, the high rate of crime that was induced by the crack epidemic forced many jobs to leave the communities. However, the structuring of laws put more emphasis on crack cocaine than powder cocaine. Not to mention, crack cocaine is prevalent in minority communities, and powder cocaine is present in the majority community. According to Martensen (2012), “Not only does this deny accessible goods and services to local residents, it likewise decreases the local job opportunities available for community members” (p. 214). Consequently, many African American called on the police to take action against the same people that looked just like them. Crutchfield, & Weeks (2015) states, “Some of the changes during this period of increased incarceration that disadvantaged people of color coming into the justice system were implemented with the help and support of African American political leadership” (p. 109). Therefore, lawmakers had to come up with a solution to address the issue. Law-makers created laws that put emphasis on arresting drug dealers for selling drugs. These small-time drug dealers were becoming a hazard to the community. However, the laws begin to cause harm to all that looked brown or black whether

The United States features a prison population that is more than quadruple the highest prison population in Western Europe (Pettit, 2004). In the 1980s, U.S. legislation issued a number of new drug laws with stiffer penalties that ranged from drug possession to drug trafficking. Many of those charged with drug crimes saw longer prison sentences and less judicial leniency when facing trial. The War on Drugs has furthered the boom in prison population even though violent crime has continued to decrease steadily. Many urban areas in the U.S. have a majority black population. With crime tendencies high in these areas, drugs are also prevalent. This means that a greater percentage of those in prison are going to be black because law

In The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander develops a compelling analogy on how mass incarceration is similar to the Jim Crow era, and is a “race-making institution.” She begins her work with the question, “Where have all the black men gone?” (Alexander, 178) She demonstrates how the media and Obama have failed to give an honest answer to this question, that the large majority of them or in prison. She argues that in order to address this problem, we must be honest about the fact that this is happening, and the discrimination with the African American communities that is putting them there.

Alexander claims that the sole reason that the war on drugs was started was to maintain the racist nature that faces America. Alexander realizes that even though the Jim Crow Laws were eradicated, we have just reshaped the ways in which we decide to ruin lives. As the old adage says, “The more things change, the more they remain the same”. I think to a certain point Americans need to have reassurance that things really are changing and here’s where Jim Crow ends, but in the background the powerful people in this country had to come up with a new plan to feed their racist nature. One politician after another want to show how tough they can be on drugs. Each wanting to be stronger than the other. They didn’t care who they were hurting on the bottom, as long as they looked extra tough.

“Northern nativists battled against the flood of immigrant Catholics and Jews, western whites attacked the Chinese with legal bans and racist programs, the South enshrined Jim Crow disenfranchisement and segregation in their state constitutions, and the nation took up its own piece of the white man’s burden in its imperialist expansion into the Caribbean and the Philippines. In this racially and religiously charged climate, the war on drugs became a unifying element in a crusade for racial, moral, and national purity (Cohen, 74).”

American people identified the War on Drugs was launched to combat the crack crisis. However, Alexander claims that the crack crisis emerged some years after the War on Drugs was launched. She argues that negative racial stereotypes surrounding the crack crisis were widely dispersed on media. Reagan administration intensified a campaign to gain public and legislative support to the drug war in 1985. Suddenly media was saturated with images of black “crack whores” “crack dealers” and “crack babies” (p.5). There was a widespread discourse that crack crisis was a problem of the poor black neighborhoods. Thus, it was created and constantly reinforced the idea that African American people are drug addicts and dangerous. It is not surprising to know white people that is scared of black people. Moreover, in case you argue to someone that is scared of black people that s/he is being racist, they will claim that statistics prove that many African American are in prison due to drug issues.

The disproportionate numbers of African Americans in the prison system is a very serious issue, which is not usually discussed in its totality. However, it is quite important to address the matter because it ultimately will have an effect on African Americans as a whole.

C. Vann Woodward’s most famous work, The Strange Career of Jim Crow, was written in 1955. It chronicles the birth, formation, and end of Jim Crow laws in the Southern states. Often, the Jim Crow laws are portrayed as having been instituted directly after the Civil War’s end, and having been solely a Southern brainchild. However, as Woodward, a native of Arkansas points out, the segregationist Jim Crow laws and policies were not fully a part of the culture until almost 1900. Because of the years of lag between the Civil War/Reconstruction eras and the integration and popularity of the Jim Crow laws, Woodward advances that these policies were not a normal reaction to the loss of the war

American has a legacy of the mistreatment and disenfranchisement of African Americans. The same bad treatment that many think only took place in the past is in fact still intact, it’s just presented in a new way. The mass incarceration of blacks in the Unites States can be attributed to the “racial hierarchy” that has always existed. The U.S contributes to about 5% of the worlds overall population, and about 25% of the worlds prison population (Holland 1), “if those rates reflected jail, probation and parole populations, the numbers would rise exponentially”(Griffith 9). Statics show that there is a chance that about 1 in 3 black males are expected end up in prison (Jacobson). Although, in terms of the entire United States population African Americans only make up about 13% (Prison Activist Resource Center. Racism Fact Sheets: “ Latinos and the Criminal Injustice System.” 2003). There is a huge number of African Americans involved in the criminal justice system in some way. The average person does not know about mass incarceration nor about the racism that is in just about every part of the criminal justice system. When most people think about racism their thoughts often drift to slavery or Jim Crow laws, but for most, they do not consider how the amount of African Americans in prison today could be due to bias or racism. A significant cause of mass incarceration is the same racism that produced the Jim Crow era.

The criminal justice system accepts responsibility for making our neighborhoods and cities safe for all. The repercussions of removing people from their families and communities and then depositing them back later, without any assistance or substantial rehabilitation, are grave.9 Men and women who have served extensive prison sentences for nonviolent drug offenses are not only left with little or no social support but also clearly marked by the criminal justice system as potentially threatening repeat offenders. Although mass incarceration policies have recently received a great deal of attention (due to incarceration becoming prohibitively costly), failure to address the legacy of racism passed down by our forefathers and its ties to economic oppression will only result in the continued reinvention of Jim

So in an attempt to isolate and control the pariah, the poor Black, an economic

The War on Drugs began in increments, first with President Nixon and secondly with President Reagan (Hill, Oliver, Marion, 2012). While under the Nixon administration, the Drug Enforcement Administration was developed due to the thought of how drugs can affect an individual as well as a community. Drugs did not only affect the user and the community, but also the families as well as children. Out of all the presidents, it is documented that President Nixon was one who had discussions about drugs more than any other president (Hill, et al., 2012).

In The New Jim Crow, much of the focus spotlights the issue of the War on Drugs and how that those supposed anti-drug policies have created unequal members of society. TheWar on Drugs was first waged in 1971, when President Richard Nixon first