The New Jim Crow Mass Incarceration

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Examining The New Jim Crow In Michelle Alexander’s new book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, the issue of race and class in regards to incarceration are critically examined. Alexander found that there are an astonishing number of African Americans being incarcerated as opposed to any other race. They are therefore being warehoused in the prison system, to only face greater hardships once released. Alexander argues that due to the increasing amount of African American’s under supervision by the government, there is a racial caste system created in our modern day society that inhibits many from obtaining proper housing, education, or employment. Alexander also argues that the United States criminal…show more content…
Not only do they have the stigma and shame carried on from being convicted, but there are many other punishments that go beyond the prison. Alexander says that there are three phases of entrapment that an offender faces. First, there is the roundup in which a large amount of people are swept into the criminal justice system by the police, who conduct numerous drug operations that take place mainly in lower class and African American communities. The next phase is the conviction – the pressure to plead guilty regardless of their innocence and time spent under the formal control of the criminal justice system. Drug offenders spend more time in prison in the United States then any other country in the world (Alexander 2010). The final stage is the period of invisible punishments. Alexander (2010) says that this term, labeled first by Jeremy Travis, is meant to further deter criminals and is a form of punishment that goes beyond prison walls and into the everyday life of the offenders. They are mainly private punishments, ones that are not typically viewed by the public and often times are not even known to the offender. They are not given at the discretion of the judge; they are a product of the law. In most cases, these invisible punishments have a larger impact on the offender’s lives than did the time spent behind bars. Some examples of the invisible…show more content…
Alexander discusses the fact that the prison system in today’s society has created a racial caste that exists only in lower class society. She argues that it is much the same as during the Jim Crow era and even the era of slavery. Acedemics such as Foucault, Wakefield and Uggen, Bosworth, and Jeremy Travis agree in three main areas: that the War on Drugs creating an inequality throughout our system, that the prisons act as a suppressor to people’s rights, and the invisible punishments faced by those who are “felons” need to become a public policy instead of a private matter. Alexander’s book, although controversial to some, makes some compelling arguments about the role of the criminal justice system in racial suppression. Anyone who would want to understand our current system of imprisonment would find it benefitial and informative to read the

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