Throughout the course of the semester our class discussions have centered around the question, how did the United States come to hold the title of the highest rate of incarceration in the world. All of the books and films covered in class have pointed out how race and policing practices are linked to mass incarceration. Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis by Christian Parenti discusses these issues. In his book Parenti analysis how the criminal justice system came to be what it is today, economically and politically. Parenti then discusses policing and policing on immigrants. Parenti finishes off with the conditions inside and the political order within prison walls. To recognize the issue of mass incarceration it is critical to address how this system came into practice. Lockdown America mentions the role that President Johnson had on setting up the foundation for mass incarceration (Parenti 2001). A point Elizabeth Hinton further analysis in ““A War Within Our Own Boundaries”: Lyndon Johnson's Great Society and the Rise of the Carceral State”. Parenti poses a view that set up the state that United States was in during the johnson administration. The country was in the greatest era domestic …show more content…
In Elizabeth Hinton’s article she examines how these social programs lead to the carceral state. Her argument is very similar to Parenti, Hinton argues that Johnson viewed the way to resolve crime was to solve poverty (Hinton 2015). The language used when enacting these programs reminded me of the coded language discussion we had in class. Both Parenti and Hinton allude to coded language. Parenti says “At the heart of this new type of politics… Crime meant urban, urban meant black.” (Parenti 7). Politicians were not using the same overtly racist language we saw with Jim Crow, they were now using coded