The New Jim Crow : Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

305 Pages·2009·1.16 MB·English

by  Alexander, Michelle

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criminal justice/law $27.95 u.s.
advance praise for the new jim crow l
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“A powerful analysis of why and how mass
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“ Michelle Alexander’s brave and bold new book paints a haunting picture in which dreary felon a incarceration is happening in America, The New Jim
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garb, post-prison joblessness, and loss of voting rights now do the stigmatizing work once n Crow should be required reading for anyone working
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done by colored-only water fountains and legally segregated schools. With dazzling candor, dl The New Jim Crow for real change in the criminal justice system.”
Alexander argues that we all pay the cost of the new Jim Crow.” ee —ronald e. hampton,
— lani guinier, professor at Harvard Law School and author of The Miner’s Canary: r executive director, National Black Police Association
Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy
T as the united states celebrates
A longtime civil rights advocate and litigator, “ For every century there is a crisis in our democracy, the response to which defines how the nation’s “triumph over race” with the election of
michelle alexander won a 2005 Soros future generations view those who were alive at the time. In the eighteenth century it h Barack Obama, the majority of young black men in ma-
Justice Fellowship and now holds a joint appointment was the transatlantic slave trade, in the nineteenth century it was slavery, in the twentieth jor American cities are locked behind bars or labeled
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at the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Eth- century it was Jim Crow. Today it is mass incarceration. Alexander’s book offers a timely and felons for life. Jim Crow laws were wiped off the books
nicity and the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State Uni- original framework for understanding mass incarceration, its roots to Jim Crow, our modern decades ago, but today an astounding percentage of

versity. Alexander served for several years as director caste system, and what must be done to eliminate it. This book is a call to action.” N the African American community is warehoused in
of the Racial Justice Project at the ACLU of Northern — benjamin todd jealous, president and CEO, NAACP prisons or trapped in a permanent, second-class sta-
California, and subsequently directed the Civil Rights tus—much like their grandparents before them, who
Clinics at Stanford Law School, where she was an as- “ With imprisonment now the principal instrument of our social policy directed toward poorly e lived under an explicit system of control.
sociate professor. Alexander is a former law clerk for educated black men, Michelle Alexander argues convincingly that the huge racial disparity of In this stunning and incisive critique, civil rights
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Justice Harry Blackmun on the U.S. Supreme Court and punishment in America is not the mere result of neutral state action. She sees the rise of mass lawyer-turned-legal scholar Michelle Alexander argues
has appeared as a commentator on CNN, MSNBC, and incarceration as opening up a new front in the historic struggle for racial justice. And, she’s that we have not ended racial caste in America: we have
NPR. The New Jim Crow is her first book. right. If you care about justice in America, you need to read this book!” simply redesigned it. Alexander shows that, by targeting
— glenn c. loury, professor of economics at Brown University and author of Race, J black men through the War on Drugs and decimating
Incarceration, and American Values i communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice system
m functions as a contemporary system of racial control. In
“ After readingT he New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander’s stunning work of scholarship, one gains the current era, it is no longer permissible to use race,
the terrible realization that, for people of color, the American criminal justice system resembles explicitly, as a justification for discrimination, exclusion,
the Soviet Union’s gulag—the latter punished ideas, the former punishes a condition.” and social contempt. Yet it is perfectly legal to discrimi-
Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
—david levering lewis, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian at NYU and the author of C nate against criminals in nearly all the ways that it was
W.E.B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 1919–1963 once legal to discriminate against African Americans.
r The old forms of discrimination—discrimination in
“ We need to pay attention to Michelle Alexander’s contention that mass imprisonment in the employment, housing, education, and public benefits,
o
United States constitutes a racial caste system. Her analysis reflects the passion of an advocate denial of the right to vote, and exclusion from jury ser-
and the intellect of a scholar.” vice—are suddenly legal once you’re labeled a felon.
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—m arc mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project and the author Alexander challenges the civil rights community,
of Race to Incarcerate and all of us, to place mass incarceration at the fore-
front of a new movement for racial justice in America.
THE NEW PRESS
www.thenewpress.com
michelle alexander
Jacket photograph courtesy istock
Author photograph by the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law
Jacket design by Pollen, New York
THE NEW PRESS
The New Jim Crow

The New Jim Crow
Mass Incarceration in the
Age of Colorblindness
MICHELLE ALEXANDER
THE NEW PRESS
NEW YORK
LONDON
© 2010 by Michelle Alexander
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, in any form,
without written permission from the publisher.
Request for permission to reproduce selections from this book should be mailed to:
Permissions Department, The New Press, 38 Greene Street, New York, NY 10013.
Published in the United States by The New Press, New York, 2010
Distributed by Perseus Distribution
library of congress cataloging-in-publication data
Alexander, Michelle.
The new Jim Crow : mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness / Michelle Alexander.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-59558-103-7 (hc. : alk. paper) 1. Criminal justice, Administration of—
United States. 2. African American prisoners—United States. 3. Race discrimination—
United States. 4. United States—Race relations. I. Title.
HV9950.A437 2010
364.973—dc22 2009022519
The New Press was established in 1990 as a not-for-profi t alternative to the large,
commerical publishing houses currently dominating the book publishing industry.
The New Press operates in the public interest rather than for private gain, and
is committed to publishing, in innovative ways, works of educational, cultural,
and community value that are often deemed insuffi ciently profi table.
www.thenewpress.com
Composition by NK Graphics
This book was set in Fairfi eld LH Light
Printed in the United States of America
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
For Nicole, Jonathan, and Corinne

Contents
Acknowledgments
ix
Preface
xiii
Introduction
1
Chapter 1: The Rebirth of Caste
20
Chapter 2: The Lockdown
58
Chapter 3: The Color of Justice
95
Chapter 4: The Cruel Hand
137
Chapter 5: The New Jim Crow
173
Chapter 6: The Fire This Time
209
Notes
249
Index
281

Acknowledgments
It is often said, “It takes a village to raise a child.” In my case, it has taken a
village to write this book. I gave birth to three children in four years, and in
the middle of this burst of joyous activity in our home, I decided to write this
book. It was written while feeding babies and during nap times. It was writ-
ten at odd hours and often when I (and e veryone else in the household) had
little sleep. Quitting the endeavor was tempting, as writing the book proved
far more challenging than I expected. But just when I felt it was too much
or too hard, someone I loved would surprise me with generosity and uncon-
ditional support; and just when I started to believe the book was not worth
the effort, I would receive—out of the blue—a letter from someone behind
bars who would remind me of all the reasons that I c ould not possibly quit,
and how fortunate I was to be sitting in the comfort of my home or my offi ce,
rather than in a prison cell. My colleagues and publisher supported this ef-
fort, too, in ways that far exceeded the call of duty. I want to begin, then, by
acknowledging those p eople who made sure I did not give up—the p eople
who made sure this important story got told.
First on this list is Nancy Rogers, who was dean of the Moritz College of
Law at Ohio State University until 2008. Nancy exemplifi es outstanding
leadership. I will always remember her steadfast encouragement, support,
and fl exibility, as I labored to juggle my commitments to work and family.
Thank you, Nancy, for your faith in me. In this regard, I also want to thank
john powell, director of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Eth-