Review of The New Jim Crow
Caged.
Locked up. Jailed. Imprisoned. Incarcerated. The English language has many
words to describe the forcible segregation and confinement of a human. The
number of people in American prisons has soared in past few decades, a
phenomenon Michelle Alexander attributes to an insidious and largely
unidentified form of race control which she terms “The New Jim Crow.” Indeed,
this is the title of her controversial book published in 2010: The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the
Age of Colorblindness. Despite the recent election of the nation’s first black
president, Alexander’s work insists that racism is not only alive but thriving
in the United States. Her research sheds light on a population literally hidden
from society, and her provocative arguments boldly call for a complete overhaul
of the entire criminal justice system.
Criminalized
by Color
The main argument of The New Jim Crow is that the criminal
justice system in the United States has evolved into a mechanism of racial
control rather than a response to crime. Indeed, the author asserts that
instead of preventing crime, the system actually makes it more likely that people of color will be incited to crime because
of discriminatory hurdles to living a stable life. The most convincing evidence
for this argument is the grossly disproportionate rates of “black” and “brown”
men currently incarcerated throughout the nation’s prisons[1]; “1 in every 14 black men
was behind bars in 2006, compared with 1 in 106 white men” (p. 98). Alexander
draws parallels between the current criminal justice system and overtly
discriminatory practices against African Americans in the period between the
Civil War and the Civil Rights movement. This system of racially targeted laws
commonly known as Jim Crow successfully controlled the environments and quality
of life of African Americans in the South.
The book’s introduction claims that the
number of prisoners in the United States dramatically increased from roughly
300,000 to over 2 million in the past thirty years (p. 6). The majority of
these convicted criminals are black and brown men. The number of prisoners is
just the tip of the iceberg, as the control of the criminal justice system
extends to people who are currently on probation and parole. Alexander claims
that “one in three young African American men” in the United States today is in
one of these three categories (p. 9). Even after leaving the direct control of
the criminal justice system (and regardless of the severity of their crimes) ex-convicts
face discriminatory practices in housing, voting, public assistance, and
job-searching similar to those experienced by African Americans under Jim Crow
laws. Alexander succinctly describes: “The system of mass incarceration is
based on the prison label, not prison time” (p. 14). Current prisoners and
ex-convicts are “relegated to a permanent second-class status upon their
release,” creating a sub-class of citizen or racial caste system (p. 14).
Alexander contends that throughout the
history of the United States, powerful white men used race to secure their
power, pitting poor white men against minorities so that they would not ally to
overthrow the top class. After slavery was legally outlawed, powerful white men
enacted convict laws that essentially re-enslaved freedmen in appalling working
conditions. Vagrancy laws made it a crime to be unemployed. Of course, these
laws were aimed at and applied to blacks (p.28). Incredible barriers such as
poll taxes and unintelligible literacy tests impeded blacks’ ability to vote. Beginning
in the Reconstruction Era, segregation laws begin developing and controlled where
blacks could live, work, eat, and even sit on public transportation. The
discriminatory practices looked eerily similar to those faced by men in the
criminal justice system today. Once again, powerful white men were using race
to control the poorer classes, assuaging the anger and frustration of poor white
men further impoverished by the Civil War by lifting them just slightly above blacks—the
absolute bottom class.
During the Civil Rights movement of the
1950’s and 1960’s, “conservatives systemically and strategically linked
opposition to civil rights legislation to calls for law and order, arguing that
Martin Luther King Jr.’s philosophy of civil disobedience was a leading cause
of crime” (p. 41). According to Alexander, this wide-spread media portrayal of
the black man as a criminal was “the birth of mass incarceration” (p.40). A
couple of decades later, sneaky conservatives (aka powerful white men) once
again enacted a “strategy of exploiting racial hostility or resentment for
political gain without making explicit reference to race”—the War on Drugs,
designed for racial control (p. 47). Evidence for racial motivation of the War
on Drugs is not clearly described by Alexander, but the effects are
well-researched, including the obscenely large payments the federal government
bestowed to state and county governments who prioritized arrests of drug
offenders. Federal spending skyrocketed: “Between 1980 and 1984, FBI anti-drug
allocations increased from $8 million to $95 million” (p.49). Alexander goes on
to provide multiple stories, statistics, and legal cases establishing that this
campaign disproportionately targeted and ravaged communities of color.
Incessant patrols, stops, and searches (and the enticement of asset seizures)
ensured a steady supply of arrests. The Supreme Court has upheld these
practices in a series of unrelated cases, raising the burden of proof of racial
bias so high that even the sharpest lawyer could not clear a defendant—and most
rely on public defense.
Once in the criminal system, people
unknowingly face incredible restrictions on movement, behavior, voting, jury
service, housing, and employment. People on probation and parole must also make
payments to several government agencies, even for their own mandated drug
testing (p.150). These restrictions and required payments are horribly similar
to those existing against African Americans under Jim Crow. Another notable
parallel is the physical segregation of people in color in prisons—an even
harsher segregation than the racially segregated neighborhoods of Jim Crow. These
prisoners are not included in poverty and unemployment statistics but are
included in local population count, generally bringing more per capita allotted
funding to rural, white communities (p. 216).
Aligning
with Alexander
Although repetitive, Alexander’s arguments
are compelling. She is strongest when describing the Supreme Court’s support of
the New Jim Crow. Some of her other points are too thinly researched to be
convincing, such as her claim that “The concept of race is a relatively recent
development” (p. 23). She cites scant evidence for this extraordinary claim
(one book and two pages of second book). More disappointingly, her description
of the motivations behind the War on Drugs was not well-fleshed. Explanations
of Reagan’s policies border on ludicrous and seem to depend on the near impossibility
of proving a negative:
His
‘colorblind’ rhetoric on crime, welfare, taxes, and states’ rights was clearly
understood by white (and black) voters as having a racial dimension, though
claims to that effect were impossible to prove. The absence of explicitly
racist rhetoric afforded the racial nature of his coded appeals a certain
plausible deniability (p. 48).
Another area of disagreement came early in
the book when Alexander compared the rate of incarceration in the United States
to that of other countries and found that few other countries even came close.
Without analyzing any reason for this phenomenon other than the
racist-motivated War on Drugs, Alexander boldly declares “for reasons largely
unrelated to actual crime trends, the American penal system has emerged as a
system of social control unparalleled in world history” (p. 8). This statement
is unnecessarily hyperbolic and distracts from her primary (and worthy) focus
on the disproportionate incarceration rates of black and brown men. It is
important to remember that most other countries do not have a responsive
criminal justice system. Perpetrators can plunder, kill, and rape with impunity
in many—if not most—countries It is plausible that the tremendous size of the
United States penal system could be due in part to a just success in containing
harmful people as opposed to countries where law enforcement is corrupt or
nonexistent. Also, stating that the social control existing in the American
penal system is unparalleled throughout history is simply false. One only needs
to consider Soviet Russia, modern China, North Korea, or ancient Egypt. Surely
a country such as China which institutes a “one child” policy over billions of
people is more than a match for American prisons.
Despite these criticisms, I found myself
aligned with Alexander’s ideology, if not her evidence. In particular, I
resonated with her repeated emphasis of Dr. Martin Luther King’s warning:
“…racial caste systems do not require racial hostility or overt bigotry to thrive.
They need only racial indifference” (p 14). Race neutral policy (or “colorblindness”) can
easily turn into a default excuse for apathy. People’s hearts are more
difficult to change than systems, but lasting change will be accomplished when
men treat each other as having inherent value because of their humanity instead
of race, gender, or even accomplishments. The myth that a person’s value is the
sum of his or her actions is beguiling but deadly. As Alexander sagely notes:
Conversations
about class are resisted in part because there is a tendency to imagine that
one’s class reflects upon one’s character. What is key to America’s
understanding of class is the persistent belief—despite all evidence to the
contrary—that anyone, with the proper discipline and drive, can move from a
lower class to a higher class (p. 13).
For African American men, the stigma of
crime is a racial stigma in addition to a social stigma (p.193). It is easier
to believe that they are somehow personally inclined towards crime than to
admit the structural set-up that makes it nearly impossible for them to avoid
it. In one of many examples of “blaming the victim,” an examination of juvenile
sentencing reports in Washington State showed that prosecutors described blacks
as having “internal personality flaws” causing them to commit crimes but
described whites as committing crimes because of external conflicts in their
lives (p.115). This bias is sad but not surprising.
Policy
Practice
The
New Jim Crow reinforced my belief that racism is alive
and thriving. Alexander’s call for changed hearts resonated with my priorities
and the NASW Code of Ethics. This was how the book strengthened me. The two
ways it changed me were introducing
the concept of a racial caste system based on criminal history and softening my
opinions on drug use.
My library includes books on gangs
and pimping—two crimes associated largely with minorities. Thus, I had some
understanding of the barriers for people with a criminal history—barriers that
increase recidivism rates. The social stigma of time in prison causes deep
shame and pervasive hopelessness. Yet, I saw these barriers as social problems.
After Alexander’s explanations of parole and probation, I agree that the system sets up convicts for failure. Her
statistics were shocking: “About as many people were returned to prison for
parole violations in 2000 as were admitted to prison in 1980 for all reasons”
(p. 93). Alexander also educated me by listing an inexcusable number of rights
that are stripped away from prisoners—practices more reminiscent of Les Miserables than imaginable in a
modern country. My views on crime and punishment and effective methods for
reducing recidivism rates have changed significantly.
Prior to reading this book, I had no
idea of the rates of people who were imprisoned for drug offenses and imagined
that most people were imprisoned for violent crimes. Statistics such as a 1,100
percent increase in the number of people incarcerated for drug offenses since
1980 (up to half a million people!) completely changed the way I viewed
incarceration (p. 59). Yes, the ravages of addiction on the user and his or her
family are tragic and terrifying. Yet, I now know that the overwhelming majority of people in prisons are there not only for distributing drugs but also for simply
using them (p.99). The contrast between the War on Drugs and the campaign
against drunk driving (arguably a more lethal crime and committed primarily by white
males) was insightful (p. 200). Alexander’s description of harsh mandatory
sentences for even first time offenders was disturbing and sobering, especially
her account of the harsher penalties inflicted for drugs culturally preferred
by African Americans. The statistic that marijuana possession accounted for
nearly 80% of the arrests in the 1990s is appalling (p. 59)! During the time I
was reading this book, the (white) brother of a close friend was arrested and
incarcerated for methamphetamine use. His time in prison was brief, and I
wondered what the difference in sentencing would have been if he was black in
the American South or an urban area. Although I believe The New Jim Crow would have benefited from acknowledging more of
the harm committed by drug-funded gangs, this knowledge has made me more
sensitive towards people who were convicted for drug use, an understanding I
will carry in my social work practice.
Conclusion
Describing the end of the Civil
Rights movement, Alexander discerns: “Instead of a moral crusade, the movement
became an almost purely legal crusade” (p. 213). In defaulting to lawyers, who
admittedly drove major wins such as Brown
v. Board of Education, people lost a sense both of urgency and of personal
efficacy. We are still in this lull today and arguably in a worse state since
most people do not realize or acknowledge the prevalence of racism. As another
challenge, Alexander notes that even civil rights activists have been reluctant
to advocate on behalf of criminals (p. 214). She concludes with a call to advocacy
rather than concrete solutions. It is my belief that the most effective—though
certainly not the most rapid—solution to deconstruct a racial caste system is a
firm individual commitment to the value of every human being. As perhaps the
most famous civil rights activist entreated: “Love your neighbor as you love
yourself.” Alexander would agree with this, and I end with her words:
We
should hope not for a colorblind society but instead for a world in which we
can see each other fully, learn from each other, and do what we can to respond
to each other with love. … That is a goal worth fighting for (p. 231).
[1]Throughout the book, Alexander uses
the words “black people” and “brown people” to indicate African Americans and
Hispanics. She gives no explanation for this habitual choice of phrase.
