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The New Jim Crow Mass Incarceration

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In her book, The New Jim Crow Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander who was a civil rights lawyer and legal scholar, reveals many of America’s harsh truths regarding race within the criminal justice system. Though the Jim Crow laws have long been abolished, a new form has surfaced, a contemporary system of racial control through mass incarceration. In this book, mass incarceration not only refers to the criminal justice system, but also a bigger picture, which controls criminals both in and out of prison through laws, rules, policies and customs. The New Jim Crow that Alexander speaks of has redesigned the racial caste system, by putting millions of mainly blacks, as well as Hispanics and some whites, behind bars …show more content…

Alexander explains how discretion is granted at almost every stage of the legal system, especially regarding the discretion that prosecutors have, jury selection and policing. Also, many of those arrested either get no legal representation or are given public defenders who are too overworked to truly dedicate their time, and rarely go to trial due to the pressures of guilty plea bargains. To add to the misfortune, arrestees are not told how a guilty plea will negatively damage the rest of their life, due to debt, denial of public assistance, loss of voting rights, and the social label of being a felon. Innocent family members are punished sometimes too, for if they are caught housing a criminal they can face losing their home, food stamps, and welfare. Alexander makes it clear that convicted criminals aren’t the only ones being affected by the vicious consequences of the legal system, but that their families are …show more content…

Alexander notes that justice system has respect for the wisdom of police judgment, which often results in their arrests not being questioned. Through the tactic of consent searches, police officers are given the ammunition to make their arrests. They use traffic violations and drug sniffing dogs in order to search people and their property for drugs. The tactic of stop and frisk is also often employed, and is deemed acceptable if the officer has “probable cause” to stop the individual in the first place. Alexander points out that these tactics are mostly employed in poor, urban areas, because making an arrest is much easier since blacks tend to sell drugs more out in the

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