The Jail and The New Jim Crow both describe how our justice system is generally based on people’s conceptions of things, and how our own justice system is creating a new way of discriminating people by labeling, incarcerating the same disreputables and lower class that have come to be labeled as the rabble class. In chapter two, of The New Jim Crow, supporting the claim that our justice system has created a new way of segregating people; Michelle Alexander describes how the process of mass incarceration actually works and how at the end the people that we usually find being arrested, sent to jail, and later on sent to prison, are the same low class persons’ with no knowledge and resources. These people commit petty crimes that cost them their …show more content…
For example, Irwin points out in his observations, that most of the times the severity of the cases has nothing or little to do at the time the of the arrest; and how in reality, the offensiveness of the act is what plays a bigger role in the arrest. In other words, the people who are arrested are usually arrested mostly because of the way that they behave and the way they look. For example, according to him, corner boys, junkies, derelicts, outlaws, lowriders, gays, aliens are more likely to get arrested than any other citizen because the way they look calls for attention and the way they behave gives the police a reason for their arrest. In the other hand, Alexander says that most of the times how the system works, or at least in the case of the war against drugs, is totally random and it mostly depends on the justice system but she does agree that the looks and behavior plays a big role too. For example, according to her research, the way most of the times people involved with drugs are caught, it is because police randomly stop and search people that might look suspicious, most of the cases they are innocent from a drug related charge, but one way or another they are guilty of something which causes them to end up in jail charged with a misdemeanor just because of the way they
It tells how that too harsh of an punishment could never be an effective way to crime. Also, it proposes that under racist and sexist government, and social classes , prisons are bound to be harsh and discriminatory institutions. Angela Davis argues that prison helps us see problems with our society and especially the problems that are
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness is a non fiction book written by Michelle Alexander, a well known civil rights lawyer, is a book that every American citizen should read. Alexander’s book cover is of three metal bars and two strong black hands holding them tightly. The book spent multiple weeks on The New York Times bestsellers list and has a foreword written by Cornel West, he is a well known and respected social activist. The book discuss how the new system of oppression for people of color in the United States is mass incarceration. Jim Crow laws were a systematic way to segregate and discriminate against black people.
According to Alexander, “Today, most American know and don’t know the truth about mass incarceration” (p. 182). Before reading this book I did know of the inequality towards people of color in the criminal justice. book has made me realized how easily we as humans, jump into conclusion without thinking twice and judging a person by their look or race without trying to get who they are. Although most people know better and know how wrong it is to judge a book or person on their cover we often find ourselves doing just that when we first come into contact with a different culture. This book “The New Jim Crow” by Michelle Alexander has made me realized how the United State has one of the largest population in prison.
In the article, The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander, she explores a subject that most people ignore; that is a racial caste system exists in America. Specifically, she asserts that mass incarceration is a new racial caste system which provides context for the political, social and economic problems, represents the New Jim Crow. In post Jim Crow society, Alexander empathizes, we have adopted to the colorblind perspective, which states that race is not being justified for discrimination or social contempt. Instead of relying on race, we use our criminal justice system to label colored people as criminals. Once we labeled them as criminals, all forms of discrimination will be legal against people of color.
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY Alexander, M. (2012). The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (Rev. ed.). New York, NY: The New Press. Michelle Alexander in her book, "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness" argues that law enforcement officials routinely racially profile minorities to deny them socially, politically, and economically as was accustomed in the Jim Crow era.
In Just Mercy, author Bryan Stevenson recounts his time as a lawyer in Alabama during a time when the reality of racism in America was being seen for what it truly is; unjust and unfair. One of the connections Stevenson draws is that of slavery and the ties it has to today’s criminal justice system. In a study by the National Academic Press, it was estimated that in 1972, 161 U.S. residents were incarcerated in prisons/jails per 100,000 population; by 2007, that rate had more than quintupled to a peak of 767 per 100,000 (Jeremy Travis, 2014, p.33). In 2014, when Stevenson’s memoir was published, the number of those incarcerated estimated around 1.56 million— 58 percent of those identified as either Latino or Black (Carson, 2014).
Michelle Alexander, similarly, points out the same truth that African American men are targeted substantially by the criminal justice system due to the long history leading to racial bias and mass incarceration within her text “The New Jim Crow”. Both Martin Luther King Jr.’s and Michelle Alexander’s text exhibit the brutality and social injustice that the African American community experiences, which ultimately expedites the mass incarceration of African American men, reflecting the current flawed prison system in the U.S. The American prison system is flawed in numerous ways as both King and Alexander points out. A significant flaw that was identified is the injustice of specifically targeting African American men for crimes due to the racial stereotypes formed as a result of racial formation. Racial formation is the accumulation of racial identities and categories that are formed, reconstructed, and abrogated throughout history.
America, the land of the free, but is that true? The book The New Jim Crow raises many questions and forces its readers to reconsider the way we think about our judicial systems. Michelle Alexander brings up 6 main themes that we need to consider, the first one being The New Jim Crow. This is the main theme of the author’s work. She believes that our current American system of mass incarceration due to the rise in drug related arrested, is an attempt to neglect people of color, the same way that the Jim Crow laws had targeted African Americans in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Mass Incarceration Through the Era of Colorblindness In the New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander portrayed a strong and provocative evaluation of the mass incarceration in the United States. When writing this book Alexander wanted to achieve to bring up a much needed conversation of the role that the criminal justice system had in the creation of this new racial caste system as well as show how the consequences of being labeled a felon have simply redesigned the old Jim Crow. She aimed towards the audience of other civil rights activists who hope to work towards racial justice, those of which she believes will be skeptical of what she has to say.
Annotated Bibliography Alexander, M. (2010). The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. New York: The New Press. Alexander opens up on the history of the criminal justice system, disciplinary crime policy and race in the U.S. detailing the ways in which crime policy and mass incarceration have worked together to continue the reduction and defeat of black Americans.