The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
Rating: ★★★★★★★★★☆ 9/10
I liked this book because it provided clear, strong arguments as to why the current mass incarceration problem in the US is the new Jim Crow. I was aware of the incarceration problem because I had seen the documentary 13TH before, but it was great to read about some of the issues more in depth. Michelle Alexander’s main point is that the system of racial caste systems is cyclic, and after the abolition of Jim Crow laws, they took the form of mass incarceration and the War on Drugs.
The racist sentiments, conscious and unconscious, in society manifest themselves in the criminal justice system at three major points. At the beginning, the arrests are made by officers who are allowed, by the Supreme Court, to use race as a factor to “stop-and-frisk” people and search for drugs. Despite the evidence that white kids use and distribute drugs more commonly than black kids, and that crimes are committed at comparable rates between white and black populations, the overwhelming majority of those incarcerated are black. The second step is the prosecutorial step, which also happens to be the most blatantly racist. Crimes associated with black communities, like possession of crack cocaine vs. powder cocaine, carry much higher minimum penalties. Furthermore, the justice system encourages prosecutors to overcharge and then extract a plea bargain from the defendant. The third step is most pernicious, and perhaps most invisible to everyday Americans. When felons are released, or even if they strike a plea bargain and walk free, they are immediately a second-class citizen, subject to legal discrimination. Many can’t vote, or must pay off correctional facility fees before being allowed to vote, which can be compared to a poll tax. Employers are allowed to explicitly disallow felons from working at their establishment, making it hard for felons to find jobs after release. This becomes a vicious cycle where those who are unceremoniously arrested in troves are then spit out back into a community where they can hardly re-assimilate, and they are restricted from participating in elections to change their fate.
I liked how Michelle Alexander put everything into a historical context; it made the cyclical nature of a racial caste system more prominent and made her arguments more persuasive. I’m not giving it 10 stars because at times it was a little repetitive, and near the end of the book, she branches out into many different topics which seemed a bit rushed and underdeveloped. I would definitely recommend this book to everyone, including the documentary 13TH, because it’s a stark reminder of the invisible system we all take part in that systematically and structurally holds certain people down.
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