Summary Of The New Jim Crow By Michelle Alexander

“No task is more urgent for racial justice advocates today than ensuring that America’s current racial caste system is its last.” – Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow

In The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander (2010) describes an American paradigm that encourages pervasive racial injustices that are beyond average comprehension. In particular, the “New Jim Crow” is a system that predicates current racial differences on past social constructs that relate and date back to slavery and the Civil Rights Movement. The mass incarceration of black men in America is not the result of a propensity to commit or an affinity for drugs and crime, according to Alexander. Instead, the mass incarceration of black and brown men is a product of
The effect of the reigning Jim Crow does not manifest in ways past, nor does is bear resemblance to past blatant bigotries. The current racial caste system is a byproduct of the negative social consequences that have carried through from our past systems of racism. Alexander notes that, “Sociologists have frequently observed that governments use punishment primarily as a tool of control, and thus the extent or severity of punishment is often unrelated to actual crime” (2010, p. 7). The sustained aversion to the equitable treatment and fair valuation of blacks, and to a lesser degree, Latinos, is the direct cause of the fanatical mass incarceration of black and Latino men. The mass incarceration of blacks has rooted the characterization that they are dangerous, unmotivated, irresponsible, and
Completely, “The critical point is that thousands of people are swept into the criminal justice system every year pursuant to the drug war without regard for their guilt or innocence” (Alexander, 2010, p. 89). The criminal justice system does not rehabilitate, nor does it allow the convict to pay his or her debt to society. Alexander observes that judges are unable to consider mitigating circumstances, such as the likelihood of repeat offense, role, or motive. This sort of determinate sentence exacerbates the problem of prison overcrowding because imprisonment is often the only sentence allowable. Retribution, not rehabilitation, is often the only sentence that judges can impose. Therefore, prison populations are comprised of offenders who have committed nonviolent drug offenses, and are predominantly minority – though the majority of drug users are white. Policies designed to be “tough on crime” have caused a departure from the paradigm of