The Book review is over the book “The New Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness” the paper should consist of a summary as well as examples from the book that goes into the conversation about intersectionality, who really commits crimes, victimization. Lean the report towards how african americans are disproportionately sought out by public policies, and the overall system. Sources should only come from the book.
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The Book “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
The incarceration rate in the United States is the highest globally, with the population in prison has quadrupled since the 1980s, making the percentage of people incarcerated the highest than any other country in the world (Carson & Sabol). The prison population continues to be defined based on racial disparities. The data regarding the racial disparities in U.S. prison facilities indicates that African Americans the highly incarcerated, followed by Caucasian and Hispanic. Michelle Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” revolve around the mass incarceration conversation through a historical analysis of the criminal justice system of the United States and the correctional system functions to control those labeled criminals through deliberately chosen and systematic imposed laws, policies, restrictions, and customs (Alexander 13). Alexander aimed at stimulating the much-needed conversation regarding the creation and perpetuating a system of racial stratification and social exclusion of blacks by the criminal justice system that might have far-reaching consequences.
In the book, Alexander uses The New Jim Crow as the thesis statement to show the relationship between mass incarceration and Jim Crow segregation. The author indicates through the thesis that the Jim Crow segregation has been replaced by the mass incarceration of blacks, which is basically another form of slavery just like before it. The racialized social control that is being deployed by the current has seen the forms of discrimination that were supposed to be left behind reshaped, which are now visible in terms of employment discrimination, discrimination in education, housing, jury services, and public benefits (Alexander 138). Alexander’s analysis provided in the book is set in three main parts.
In the first part of the analysis, Alexander convincingly argues that the “War on Drugs” has been used by the United States’ criminal justice system to drive the mass incarceration system. According to Alexander (97), the Reagan administration, in the early 1980s, declared War on Drugs and used all forms to justify their actions, including media, whereby a media campaign was launched to sensationalize coverage of effects and impacts of crack cocaine in inner-city neighborhoods. However, the efforts of combating drug use and sale were directed to poor communities of color, which left communities of other races to continue selling and using the same drugs at remarkably similar or higher rates. The War on Drugs has been made more lucrative for law enforcement agencies responsible through additional federal grants and asset forfeiture making it more possible for the arrest to be made. The other factor related to War on Drugs that has influenced the mass incarceration is the Supreme Court decisions, in various cases, such as in Florida v. Bostick, which are considered to have undermined Constitutional protections in the War on Drugs.
In the second part, Alexander how the judicial system, specifically the Supreme Court, has had a significant role in decisions that have practically “closed the courthouse doors” to racism-based appeals. Alexander provides an example of the Court decision in McCleskey v. Kemp (1987), whereby McCleskey, who was black, challenged in the Supreme Court his death sentence, providing that in racial bias existed in Georgia in terms of conditions to impose a death penalty, asserting that his rights to the 8th and 14th Amendment had been violated. Despite the Supreme Court accepting, based on the statistical evidence that Georgia imposed racial discrimination in the death sentence, the Court still rejected McCleskey’s claim of racial bias. The Court provided that McCleskey could not prove conscious racial abuse in his case, which established that he was treated equally under the law (Alexander 107-108). McCleskey’s case is one of the several examples presented in the book to demonstrate how the Supreme Court has failed the blacks harmed by racial discrimination in the criminal justice system.
The third part involves the identification of the collateral consequences of one being labeled as felons. Alexander also describes the relationship of rights of persons convicted of crimes today are taken and how the rights of African Americans were taken during the Jim Crow segregation. Examples of how currently the labeled felons and former convicts are denied rights range across states, with most states denying the right to vote of convicted felons for a certain period or forever. The right to serve on juries for the felons is not practiced by the federal government jurisdiction and 31 states (Alexander 119). The discrimination of person labeled felons also exists in job applications, which has seen a high number of former convicts remaining unemployment, a trend that has also increased the rate of recidivism. For drug convicts are ineligible for housing for almost five years, cannot receive federal student loans and other financial assistance in terms of education, which has seen most young black individuals struggling to have a decent education.
In the final chapter, Alexander concludes by describing what should be conducted to challenge the current mass incarceration system and the “flawed public consensus” (222) that has resulted in the system. Some of the solutions provided in the book include ending the War on Drugs, which mostly targets blacks and minority communities. Alexander also provides that civil rights leaders should stop being reluctant to take up mass incarceration as a racial inequality system. However, she notes that ending mass incarceration will not mean the American racial caste would have ended.
Work Cited
Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. Revised edition. New York: New Press, 2012. Print.
Carson, Ann and William J. Sabol. “Prisoners in 2011.” Bureau of Justice Statistics Bulletin, 2012. https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p11.pdf. Accessed on 17 Nov. 2020.
