UFPPC (www.ufppc.org) Digging Deeper CL: February 14, 2011, 7:00 p.m.

Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (New York &
London: The New Press, January 2010.

[Thesis. The war on drugs has given birth to a former prisoners enter a hidden underworld of
permanent, mostly race-based underclass in the legalized discrimination and permanent social
U.S.; we need a national discussion of the criminal exclusion. They are members of America's new
justice system's role in creating and perpetuating undercaste" (13). Despite the American myth of
this system.] potential mobility, "a huge percentage [of African
Americans] are not free to move up at all" (13).
Acknowledgments. Written while bringing up Addressing the problem requires recognizing its
three recently born children (ix). Dean, family, nature, despite resistance (14-15). Outline (16-19).
incarcerated correspondents, the Open Society
Institute, friends, students, parents (xi-xi). Ch. 1: The Rebirth of Caste. The current system
is a successor to others: slavery, then Jim Crow
Preface. This book was written for those unaware (20-22). The need for plantation labor was the chief
of "the magnitude of the crisis faced by driver of slavery, which emerged by the 1770s from
communities of color as a result of mass a system of indentured servitude (22-25). The
incarceration" (xiii). structure of the United States Constitution was a
device needed to protect the institution of slavery
Introduction. "An extraordinary percentage of (25-26). The post-Civil War crisis of Southern
black men in the United States are legally barred society (26-30). First convict laws, then
from voting today, just as they have been segregation laws were designed to subvert the
throughout most of American history" (1). "Rather Populist attack on corporations, disenfranchising
than rely on race, we use our criminal justice system blacks and discriminating against them in every
to label people of color 'criminals' and then engage sphere of life; this system became known as "Jim
in all the practices we supposedly left behind" (2). Crow" (30-35). The downfall of Jim Crow (35-38).
Resistance to this notion (2-3). Idea first When the Civil Rights movement turned toward
encountered when she saw the sign of "[s]ome economic justice, a "search for a new racial order"
radical group" in California, but rejected it began (38-40). The notion of "law and order,"
intellectually (3). Work for the ACLU changed her which dated from the late 1950s in the South, was
mind (4). The war on drugs cannot explain the its central element and was adopted by Republicans
"racial dimension of mass incarceration" (6; 4-7). vying for power, reaching its full development in
Incarceration is not a response to crime (7-8). Ronald Reagan (40-49). The war on drugs was
"[F]or reasons largely unrelated to actual crime central (49-53). Racially coded get-tough-on-crime
trends, the American penal system has emerged as a policies were adopted by Clinton and other
system of social control unparalleled in world Democrats; law enforcement budgets and prison
history" (8). African American leaders have are not populations soared (53-57).
attending to "the crisis at hand" (11; 9-12). Though
this book does not engage the sociological debate Ch. 2: The Lockdown. Popular notions of how the
on the nature of caste, it does use the term racial criminal justice system works are wrong (58-59).
caste for "a stigmatized racial group locked into an Few legal rules restrain police in an escalating War
inferior position by law and custom" (12). The on Drugs, which tripled drug arrests from 1980 to
criminal justice system can be thought of as "a 2005 (60-77). New forfeiture laws incentivized it
gateway into a much larger system of racial by allowing state and local authorities to keep
stigmatization and permanent marginalization," viz. seized property (77-83). Many of those arrested get
"mass incarceration" (12). "The term mass no legal representation, and "[a]lmost no one ever
incarceration refers not only to the criminal justice goes to trial," thanks to pressures to plea-bargain
system but also to the larger web or laws, rules, (2%-5% of those currently in prison are innocent)
policies, and customs that control those labeled (85; 83-88). Harsh mandatory sentencing laws (88-
criminals both in and out of prison. Once released, 91). Though crime rates have not changed, the
prison population has increased from 350,000 to abnormal (164-67). "The worst of gangsta rap . . .
2,300,000 in 25 years, chiefly through harsh is best understood as a modern-day minstrel
sentencing (92). The prison label, not prison time, show . . . a for-profit display of the worst racial
is the heart of the system (92). The proportion of stereotypes and images associated with the era of
those in prison for parole violation has increased mass incarceration" (168; 168-72).
from 1% to 35% since 1980 (93). "In this system of
control, failing to cope well with one's exile is Ch. 5: The New Jim Crow. Obama's 2008 Father's
treated like a crime" (93; 93-94). Day speech (173-76). Where black fathers have
gone is no mystery—they're locked up—but society
Ch. 3: The Color of Justice. Examples (95-96). misunderstands how the system works (176-80). It
Though racial groups use and sell drugs "at has created a form of legalized discrimination (with
remarkably similar rates," the incarceration rate for three phases: roundup, conviction, invisible
African Americans "dwarfs the rate of whites" (96; punishment) in which "extraordinary numbers of
96-98). Violent crime is blamed, but "violent crime black men are forced into the cage," with the worst
is not responsible for the prison boom" (99). "It is effects on the young (180; 180-85). Parallels with
the genius of the new system of control that it can Jim Crow include political disenfranchisement,
always be defended on nonracial grounds" (100). exclusion from juries, segregation, and the
The racial result is produced by granting law "symbolic production of race" (192; 185-95).
enforcement extraordinary discretion (101-06) and Unlike Jim Crow, mass incarceration warehouses
making (under McCleskey v. Kemp [481 U.S. 279 rather than exploits a population; also it operates
(1987), "petitioner must prove that the without overt racial hostility, affects a certain
decisionmakers in his case acted with number of whites, and is supported by a certain
discriminatory purpose"]) specific intent a number of blacks (195-208).
requirement of challenging claims of racial
discrimination (106-12). Discretion is granted at Ch. 6: The Fire This Time. A major social
every stage of the legal system, particularly movement is needed to dismantle the new caste
prosecutorial discretion (112-16), jury selection system, yet "the civil rights community" is
(116-20), policing (law enforcement in ghetto awkwardly silent on the issue (209-14). Reflections
communities has been militarized) (120-24). A on strategy (214-17). Suggestions: criminal justice
2002 study of Seattle by UW researches showed reform alone is futile (217-24); the racial nature of
"untrue stereotypes" create high arrest rates of the system must be directly addressed (224-27);
African Americans (124-25). Yet barriers to legal colorblindness itself should be abandoned as a goal,
challenges to the system are almost insurmountable because "colorblindness has proved catastrophic for
(125-28). "The dirty little secret of policing is that African Americans" (228; 227-31). "[R]acial
the Supreme Court has actually granted the police differences will always exist among us" (230). We
license to discriminate" (128; 128-33): Alexander should ask to what extent affirmative action has
v. Sandoval [532 U.S. 275 (2001)] eliminated constituted a "racial bribe" that has helped make
challenges to the system by ruling that Title VI of mass incarceration "largely invisible" as it has
the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not allow victims helped foster counterproductive myths and tactics
of discrimination to sue under the law; only the (231-38). Obama's presidency is making it easier,
federal government can (134-36). not harder, to ignore the problem (238-41). It may
be time to "shift from a civil rights to a human
Ch. 4: The Cruel Hand. Defendants are not told a rights paradigm," as King was doing in 1968 (245;
guilty plea will cause permanent 242-48).
disenfranchisement and discrimination (137-41).
Housing (141-45). Employment (145-50). Notes. 30 pp.
Released prisoners are often saddled with debt
(150-52). Denial of public assistance (152-53). Index. 10 pp.
Loss of voting rights (153-56). Shame and stigma
(156-60). Imprisonment is often a taboo subject in About the Author. Michelle Alexander teaches at
communities of color and is kept secret (161-64). Ohio State Univ. In 2005 she was awarded a Soros
Gangsta rap is a coping strategy, not something Justice Fellowship. Prior to this, she was director of
the Racial Justice Project at the ACLU of Northern Bourdieu, is a major conceptual influence.
California, director of the Civil Rights Clinics at Michelle Alexander's book has been well reviewed
Stanford Law School. She clerked at the Supreme on the left, but, sad to say, little noticed elsewhere
Court for Justice Harry Blackmun. (no mention yet in the New York Times, even by
Bob Herbert). — Michelle Alexander is
[Additional information. Michelle Alexander deliberately provocative ("Today mass incarceration
holds a B.A. from Vanderbilt and a J.D. from defines the meaning of blackness in America"
Stanford Law School.] [192]); her final chapter challenges a number of
sacred cows of civil rights advocacy. — In an
[Critique. The New Jim Crow makes a strong case apparent paradox, Alexander asserts both that
that mass incarceration is a form of racial control society will never overcome the race problem and
despite its formal colorblindness. French that a paradigm shift from civil rights to human
sociologist Loïc Wacquant, a student of Pierre rights is needed.]