The New Jim Crow

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

In today’s modern world, many people would be surprised to find out that there is still a racial caste system in America. After witnessing the election of a black president, people have started believing that America has entered a post-racial society. This is both a patently false and dangerous mindset. The segregation and stigma of race is still very much alive in our society. Instead of a formalized institution such as slavery or Jim Crow, America has found a new way to continue the marginalization of blacks by using the criminal justice system. In Michelle Alexander’s book “ The New Jim Crow”, she shows how America’s “ War on Drugs “ has become a tool of racial segregation and how the discretionary enforcement of drug laws has

The facts speak for themselves, people of color are the enemies and targets in the war on drugs. They also tell us that fighting back is useless due to the racial bias that is inherent in the criminal justice system. This might come as a surprise to the majority that believe discrimination is no longer in existence, considering that it is a black man living in the White House. Ever since Barack Obama pledged to serve as the forty-fourth president

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.

Though most citizens in the United States would agree that the prison system in the U.S. needs to be amended, do they see the prison system as a way to enforce the racial caste system? At first Michelle Alexander, the author of The New Jim Crow, did not see the prison systems as racially motivated until doing further research. After researching the issue, Alexander found the prison system was a way to oppress African Americans and wrote the novel The New Jim Crow. The New Jim Crow follows the history of the racial caste system and in the novel Alexander comes to the conclusion that the mass incarceration of African American is the New Jim Crow, or in other words a new system of black oppression. Though some might try to refute the idea of mass incarceration of African Americans, Alexander offers a well thought out argument with substantial evidence and data to compellingly link Jim Crow and mass incarceration and proves that it is an issue that should be on the radar of all U.S. citizens.

Throughout history, the drug war has always targeted minority groups. “At the root of the drug-prohibition movement in the United States is race, which is the driving force behind the first laws criminalizing drug use, which first appeared as early as the 1870s (Cohen, 56)”. There were many drug laws that targeted minority groups such as the marijuana ban of 1930s that criminalized Mexican migrant farm workers and in the Jim Crow South, reformist wanted to wage war on the Negro cocaine feign so they used African Americans as a scapegoat while they overlooked southern white women who were a bigger problem for the drug epidemic (Cohen, 57). Instead of tackling the root of the drug problem they passed the blame to struggling minority groups within the United States.

African Americans constitute 12% of the U.S. population, 13% of the drug using population and fully 74% of the people sent to prison for drug possession. Studies have shown that minorities are subject to disparate treatment at arrest, bail, charging, plea bargaining, trial, sentencing, and every other stage of the criminal process. These disparities accumulate so that African Americans are represented in prison at seven times their rate in the general population; rates of crime in African American communities is often high, but not high enough to justify the disparity. The resentment destabilizes communities and demeans the entire nation. (Justice, 2004)

The “War on Drugs” established that the impact of incarceration would be used as a weapon to combat the illegal drug problem in this country. Unfortunately, this war against drugs has fallen disproportionately on black Americans. “Blacks constitute 62.6% of all drug offenders admitted to state prisons in 1996, whereas whites constituted 36.7%. The drug offender admissions rate for black men ranges from 60 to an astonishing 1,146 per 100,000 black men. In contrast, the white rate begins at 6 and rises no higher than 139 per 100,000 white men. Drug offenses accounted for nearly two out of five of all black admissions to state prisons (Human Rights Watch, 2000).” The disproportionate rates at which black drug offenders are sent to prison originate in racially disproportionate rates of arrest.

Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness goes into great detail on race related issues that were specific to black males, the mass incarceration, and how that lead to the development of institutionalized racism in the United States. She compares the Jim Crow with recent phenomenon of mass incarceration and points out that the mass incarceration is a network of laws, policies, customs and institutions that have been working together to warrant the subordinating status of black males. In this paper I will go into a brief examination of the range of issues that she mentions in her book that are surrounding the mass incarceration of black male populations.

When a country has over 2 million people imprisoned, there either is an incredibly high crime rate or a problem with the system.  Half of those incarcerated are for drug offenses. The criminal justice system in America was started to keep citizens safe, to respect and rehabilitate victims, and to return offenders who leave prison to be self-sufficient and law-abiding. What the system has become is a massive failure that our states and nation can no longer afford(DeRoche). There is much debate over why this number is so high, but most, if not all, sources point towards racism and the War on Drugs. Even though segregation is illegal as well as frowned upon, it does not stop law enforcement from picking on people of different races. Latino citizens are 3 times as likely to be detained compared to white citizens. African Americans are 5 times as likely to be detained compared to white citizens. Most African American defendants never go to trial. Two-thirds of the people in the U.S. serving life sentences are not white(Quigley). This is further influenced by the so called War on Drugs. This war was started by President Richard Nixon when he proclaimed, “America’s public enemy number one in the United States is drug abuse.  In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive(Head)” Soon after this speech, he established the Drug Enforcement Administration(DEA). This as well as the

Most people assume the “War on Drugs” was launched in response to the crisis cause by crack-cocaine in inner city neighborhoods. This view supports that racial disparities in drug convictions and sentences, as well as the rapid explosion of the prison population, reflect nothing more than the government’s zealous efforts to address rampant drug crime in poor, minority neighborhoods. This view while understandable, given the sensational media coverage of crack in the 1980’s and 1990’s, is simply wrong. In fact, the war on drugs began at a time when illegal drug use was on the decline. However, during this time period, a war was declared, causing arrest and convictions for drug offenses to skyrocket, especially amongst people of color.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union, “African Americans make up an estimated 15% of drug users, but they account for 37% of those arrested on drug charges, 59% of those convicted and 74% of all drug offenders sentenced to prison.” These statistics show that minorities, especially African Americans have to pay the price, using their lives by going to jail or prison. Other races are just as guilty with the drug war but minorities are targeted more than the other races.

After forty years since the War on Drugs began, the U.S government has spent up to one trillion dollars of taxpayers’money on mass incarceration, drug law enforcement and prohibition. The drug war caused the prison population to increase significantly. According to Richard Branson in his article, “War on drugs a trillion-dollar failure”, America leads the world in the number of incarcerated citizens, 2.3 millions prisoners and more than a half of a million are serving sentences for drug offense. People of color with a minor or non-violent drug offense are the main victims of the drug war. Increasing imprisonment and extensive prison sentences is the burden of the economy. The government spends a lot of money on arresting and incarcerating of millions of people each year. According to the report “State

According to author Lez Zaits “[In Oregon] DEA meth seizures would nearly triple from 1994-2007”. The battle against illegal drug’s has led to the overcrowding of prisons. The prison population in the U.S has skyrocketed due to laws that aim to crack down on drug possession and distribution. Prior to the War on Drugs the U.S prison population was significantly lower than today. Just two decades before the War on Drugs was started the U.S had 209,000  prisoners in federal and state prisons combined. According to the Human Rights Watch, the War on Drugs has caused high incarceration rates that placed thousands  of Americans behind bars. Due to the high rate of incarceration the United States has seen a demand for privatization and the for-profit industry. Unfortunately instead of seeing a shift away from the criminalization of drug usage and a decrease in drug distribution the United States has seen a surge in imprisonment and drug production. Compared to the number of prisoners before the War on Drugs, the bureau of Justice Statistics stated that as of 2008 there are 1,610,446 people sentenced. When compared to crime stricken countries like Mexico  the population of prisoners in the U.S is

“The first slaves came to the United States in 1619. During this period there have literally been a few scattered decades in which African Americans had a fairly decent shot at entering the mainstream society. Especially black males are targets for abuse by the security system, drug wars, killing and lack of opportunity for employment” (Noam Chomsky). The war on drugs has been congruous with tossing African American’s in jail. Various statistics demonstrate the racial discrimination that the drug war has generated. These massive private prisons are being built at an accelerated rate to house numerous of minorities for simple drug possessions. When you look at who are using these illegal drugs versus the people who are being incarcerated, a different picture is being painted. It’s not hard to discern that the drug policies that are in place are a form of social control. They influence a specific type of people and those they affect are more often than not minorities living in America.