Michelle Alexander in her book "The New Jim Crow" argues that Mass Incarceration is similar to Jim Crow; Alexander believes that caste systems such as Jim Crow and slavery are similar to the existing system of mass incarceration. In addition, Alexander accuses the U.S. criminal justice system, implying their laws undividedly target African Americans through the War on Drugs and racial limitation. In comparing mass incarceration with Jim Crow, Alexander points to compelling parallels regarding political
The first chapter in The New Jim Crow called The Rebirth of Caste, Alexander talks about how even though slavery has passed and there are people still out there to keep our society divided. This was called racial hierarchy is a system of belief that some racial groups were either superior or inferior. The superior where considered the most powerful while this left the inferior at the bottom. As slavery left, the superior used the War on Drugs and mass incarcerations as a way to separate and control
The Jim Crow laws were established and came about in the beginning of the 1880s and these laws were created to legalize segregation between African American and Caucasians. This book the New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness explains the mass incarceration of African Americans in the war on drugs. The text explains how it is said that most drug dealers are said to be black or brown, and that the War on Drugs is a racist conspiracy to put “blacks” back in their place. The United
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 development. Michelle Alexander, in her book, The New Jim Crow:
In her book “The New Jim Crow,” Michelle Alexander presents the evidence that mass incarceration, as brought forth by the drug war, is a mere continuation of the discriminatory nature of the Jim Crow Laws in the post civil war era and of slavery before that. Alexander’s argument hinges on the idea that this new way of discriminating against minorities is equally systematic to the Jim Crow Laws and Slavery. She then relates this argument with the decrease in limitations of the police force, the disproportionately
The New Jim Crow Michelle Alexander wrote a book called "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness." The original Jim Crow was a racial caste system that segregated whites from blacks, where whites were privileged and viewed as the chosen ones while blacks were taught to be minority and used as servants between 1877 and the 1960s. The Jim Crow system kept whites superior to blacks with laws created to keep whites favored. It was a legal way to prevent African Americans from
Introduction Mass incarceration in the United States has been a very prominent and distinct feature of our criminal justice system. The rates of which this system imprisons is very unequal when compared to other countries in the world, as well as when compared to other races within the United States itself. Mass incarceration does alter the lives of those who are within its prison system, and also those who are related to those individuals whether it be through blood or bond. These effects can extend
Mass incarceration and race have been issues since the late 1950’s. Blacks and Latinos have been mistreated and have had unequal rights for decades. “The New Jim Crow” by Michelle Alexander shows us how the discrimination against blacks and Latinos has evolved over time in regards to the War on Drugs. It claims that the drug policy is mainly reinforced for people of color, keeping Black and Latinos incarcerated (or keep them in poverty). People of color have always been portrayed to be the reason
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness is a book by Michelle Alexander, a civil rights litigator and legal scholar. The book discusses race-related issues specific to African-American males and mass incarceration in the United States. Michelle Alexander (2010) argues that despite the old Jim Crow is death, does not necessarily means the end of racial caste (p.21). In her book “The New Jim Crow”, Alexander describes a set of practices and social discourses that serve to
The book “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” (“The New Jim Crow”) hits on many significant points concerning the criminal justice system and the systemically racial elements that have been perpetuated through various laws. As argued in the book, the “War on Drugs” has been used to perpetuate racial discrimination against African Americans since the 1980s and the Reagan Administration. My personal reflection on the book comes from a legal perspective. Within the world