The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, by Michelle Alexander

Additionally, Jim Crow laws are known as the former practice of segregating black people in America. Consequently, Steiker (2014) mentions, that modern day “Jim Crow laws” have presented negative effects towards Black Americans, such as, discrimination towards the right to vote, the right to serve on juries, to receive public benefits, to be free from discrimination in employment and housing and to earn wages free from garnishment as fees or fines. Steiker (2014) makes it known that it is imperative to note that a person who has been institutionalized has their basic human rights removed. Lawrence (2011) mentions that having 2.3 million people

There is discernment against the African Americans towards different privileges which are essential to their lives. This discrimination is political as leaders steer operations that are aimed at racially discriminating people from particular groups of race. There are more black Americans who are under correctional control, on parole or probation and in jail or in prison than they were enslaved in the 19th century. Now there ... ... middle of paper ... ...misinterpreted the whole problem of mass incarceration by repackaging and augmenting the existing social justice. The critiques have argued that Alexander created a strained similarity to the unique Jim Crow laws, employed a counter revolutionary conceptual framework and marginalized brown and black voices in favor of less radical and more mainstream perceptions.

The United States have created policies in which it targets minority groups, but especially African Americans. Throughout the history of our nation, our government has an inferior complex of blacks in fear of rebellion from the lower to middle social classes. History tells us that people are willing to unite for a cause regardless of racial differences. Mass incarceration is a product of the Jim Crow Laws that plagued this nation after the civil war. The effects of being labeled a convicted felon is similar to the era before the civil rights laws were passed.

Lemann states the purpose of this book is to answer the question “what kinds of lives black people might live in the South now depended on the freed slaves’ organizing abilities and on the reliability of their voting rights” (xi). The subtitle, The Last Battle of the Civil War, correctly states that although the Civil War had officially ended the battle stilled raged physically, politically, and through public sentiment. First, Lemann documents horrible accounts of violence against freed blacks. The casual observer views the underlying reasons for these attacks as simple racial hatred. However, Lemann connects the acts of violence to show an orchestrated movement intended to undermine both keys to the freed blacks’ quality of life, organizing abilities and voting rights.

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 blacks once again but through the legal system. Alexander then comes into talking about the history before all this has happened.

To fully understand the reason why one must look back on America’s history and how African Americans were treated. The past arrest patterns do not explain why the gap continues to increase, however it is clear that the past arrest patterns is more an indicator of institutional racism that exists in this country. One study found that African Americans believe the reason for the high incarceration rates is becau... ... middle of paper ... ..., Dumont DM, Nunn A. 2013. Incarceration of a Household Member and Hispanic Health Disparities: Childhood Exposure and Adult Chronic Disease Risk Behaviors.

Zinn sets out to show the reader that as early as the 1600 blacks have been made to feel unequal and that the color black was degrading. According to Zinn slavery was brought to the fore front about fifty years before Columbus’s time, and originated in South American, the Caribbean, Portuguese and the Spanish colonies. “He stated that Por... ... middle of paper ... ...of their punishments consisted of being hung and beaten, or the removal of a body part. This was a scare tactic by the slave owners to intimidate fear or control over the slaves to keep them obedient. Laws and policies were passed to protect the slave owners making it impossible for the slaves to learn to read or write.

The system operates through our criminal justice institutions, but it functions more like a caste system than a system of crime control” (Alexander, 2012, p. 13) Alexander makes an important distinction in this book, too. That is that criminals are the new version of slaves for our country – but they are the black male criminals, not all criminals. The structural racism designed to relegate the black popula... ... middle of paper ... ...ere taken in the initial discussions of getting tough on crime in the late 1960s and early 1970s: the conservative side which argued that “poverty was caused not by structural factors related to race and class but rather by culture – particularly black culture” and the liberal side which argued that “social reforms such as the War on Poverty and civil rights legislation would get at the root causes of criminal behavior and stressed the social conditions that predictably generate crime” (Alexander, 2012, p. 45). The liberals were definitely onto something. The process by which we address crime must account for the intersectionality of our country relative to crime.

In fact, the justice system, thought to unit and promote equality in “the land of the free,” actually contributes to the destruction of our national idea of racial harmony. This paper will focus on how the criminal justice system works and how racism plays a major role within the justice Lobhai 2 system. Incorporated throughout the paper lie excerpts from poets and individuals who have spoken out against this bias justice system and racism they many have experienced in their era. African Americans have especially experienced and suffered from racism, beginning from the days of slavery and the need for cheap labor during the Industrial Revolution. In an essay entitled Black Americans: Prisoners of Socio-economic Cycles, the author states that “Those first Africans were prisoners of a socio-economic system which by design was purposely incapable of rendering justice and therefore, equal opportunity to Africans as well as other minorities (Ansar 2).” During the years of oppression, in which blacks still experienced limited freedom within the law, many artists spoke against this discrimination through their literature.

Opponents to mass incarceration like Michelle Alexander have called it the “New Jim Crow”, a social institution aimed at limiting the rights of African Americans. Upon their release criminals are legally denied the right to vote, excluded from juries, and placed in a position of subordination. Others would suggest that, “cultural shifts, political realignments, changes in job prospects for low-skilled men, and perhaps most importantly, legal changes” have led to the severe increase and absolute disparity in the rates of black imprisonment over the late 20th and early 21st centuries. One thing is certain, mass incarceration would be justifiable if crime decreased but that is just not the case. Evidence has shown that the benefits of mass imprisonment in reducing crime have diminished over time and incarceration is now a much less effective method for crime control than it was before the 1990s.