d Jan 20, 2013

it was amazing 's review

Mainstream criminologists predicted the end of prisons in the 1970s, when there were only 350,000 people in American prisons compared to 2 million today. In fact, a 1974 recommendation by the U.S. National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals suggested, "no new institutions should be built and existing institutions for juveniles should be closed...the prison, the reformatory and the jail have achieved record of failure. There is overwhelming evidence that these institutions create crime rather than prevent it."



Alexander meticulously and reasonably argues her case that mass incarceration is a caste system continuing slavery and Jim Crow's subjugation of African Americans. Once someone is labelled a felon, they face employment discrimination, housing discrimination, denial of voting rights, denial of educational opportunity, denial of food stamps...much like blacks faced during Jim Crow. The system unquestionably targets African Americans disproportionately: One in 14 black man was behind bars, compared to one in 106 white men (98). And the policies are rooted in coded but clear racist discourse of Ronald Reagan and other white elites.



Alexander is perhaps at her best in Chapter 3 when she dismisses various rationalizations for why blacks are disproportionately incarcerated. Blacks do not use illegal drugs more often than whites; to the contrary, a 2000 study showed white students use powder cocaine at 7 times the rate of black students and crack cocaine at 8 times the rate. Blacks do not use drugs more recklessly; actually white youth have 3 times the number of drug-related ER visits. Blacks incarceration rates don't result from violent crime; the incarceration rate has steadily increased since the 1980s as a result of the War on Drugs as violent crime rates greatly fluctuated.



It is frustrating that the book stops short of radical conclusions. As the Criticism section of its Wikipedia page says, there is no mention of capitalism and many important radical perspectives are excluded. Ultimately it is a liberal book, but it gets its point across extremely well and will hopefully will encourage readers to keep reading and thinking more deeply about the subject. It is a book I will constantly refer back to for facts and figures about the prison-industrial complex.

