Michelle Alexander’s award-winning book centers itself on the object of mass incarceration and the racial issues of African Americans. The document addressed the issue of racism and its role in the mass incarceration, with the author arguing that there is a caste-like system relegating minorities and people of color to second class status ( Alexander, 2010). The racial caste is still alive in America with discrimination against minorities effected through mass incarceration. The author described a process where the justice system controls people of color through systematically sanctioned legal limits. The racial profiling of minorities shows that the country has redesigned the racial caste of Jim Crow that seeks to discriminate against people of color.
This high rate of mass incarceration is not high by coincidence, instead it demonstrates the rot that is in the criminal justice system. Racial profiling is an indication of how this New Jim Crow has taken root in American society. Law enforcement officers are playing the racial card in raising suspicion of a crime, as seen with excessive use of force against Black Americans through wrongful detainment and unfair judgments that are sending a majority of them to jail. This is not the racism of segregation that has been condemned in the society, but the racism of colorblindness executed by a racial caste system.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
In essence, there is a widespread issue of racial bias propagated by the New Jim Crow rules. The racial bias has seen people of color decriminalized and subject to unfair treatment with black men and women comprising the majority of individuals who are incarcerated in the prison system. Due to this New Jim Crow, the minority communities in the United States have experienced several challenges that undermines their standards of living. There are several political, social, and economic discourses used to keep African Americans in an institutionally controlled society.
Political Challenges
The New Jim Crow that is present through mass incarceration has led to several issues of political discrimination and violation of people’s rights. This is seen with a large number of blacks being arrested, convicted and receiving longer sentences than their white counterparts, not because they are most likely to commit a crime but because of their skin color. These individuals who are released from prison are stripped of their rights to vote, vie for political sears or serve on juries. Several millions of people in the US are denied their constitutional right to vote because of their contact with the wrong side of the law and have their constitutional rights subverted.
The author describes how the racially biased police discretion in the United States contributes to the mass incarceration of minorities and people of color ( Alexander, 2010) . Police brutality and racial profiling of black people explains why a majority of those imprisoned are blacks associated with specific offenses. These people end up spending time in prisons where they have no right to participate in the political processes.
According to this book, the racism perpetuated in mass incarceration undermine the many gains from civil rights movement that granted rights and freedoms to all Americans. Instead, Millions of Blacks convicted of minor non-offensive crimes are increasingly being marginalized and disfranchised. The American Justice System has forever branded incarcerated blacks as felons even after serving their sentence, denying them their fundamental rights and opportunities granted in the constitution such as the right to vote or hold political offices ( Alexander, 2010) .
Social Challenges
The New Jim Crow has replaced the old caste system where the minority communities are placed in a permanent state of disenfranchisement. According to the book, mass imprisonment has been advanced as a social control system that seeks to keep African Americans in disenfranchisement ( Alexander, 2010) . While they cannot be enslaved in this age, the system has ensured that African Americans continue to be the weakest minority in society and their status does not improve.
The author demonstrates how the criminal justice system has continued to affect racial oppression in the country. There is a widespread issue of racial bias where people of color are subject to discrimination in the justice system. Racial profiling in the country is the epitome of social injustice directed towards minorities and people of color perpetrated by the law enforcement sector. The minority communities in the United States are subject to stratified racial laws where they are arrested twice as much as the white male offenders in the United States ( Alexander, 2010) . This aspect of social injustices discriminates the minority populations in the country
Economic Challenges
The author also argues that the stigma and shame of prison labels after released from prison affect the African Americans in great ways as they cannot get any form of employment. This is one of the ways that the country looks to keep African Americans socially and economically challenged by imprisoning them and ensuring they struggle getting any form of help ( Alexander, 2010) . African Americans and racial minorities are treated as second class citizens in the United States, where they are relegated to a subordinate status and continue to serve the bourgeois in the society.
People from minority communities are incarcerated at an early age for minor, non-violent crimes affecting their entire life. Such individuals will forever carry a criminal record that is hard to brush off when seeking job opportunities in the market, which means they will be forced to live a life of crime to take care of their families. The economic challenges are seen when a large percentage of individuals released from prison lives on poverty and poor economic conditions. They end up getting low-income jobs with poor wages that means they will spend the rest of their lives in poverty.
What I can learn from the Book
Therefore, I have learned that the old forms of discrimination associated with the Jim Crow era are still in practice today with the new Jim Crow of mass incarceration. The unfortunate and irrational profiling of people of color in the United States resembles what happened with the old Jim Crow Rules. The racism is perpetuated in the criminal justice system undermining the rights to freedom and equal treatment of people of color. As a result, the criminal justice system is operating like a caste system whose role is not to reform criminals or control them but acts as a social control method that looks to undermine the right of black minorities in the country.
This book transformed how I view the phenomenon of mass incarceration and why a majority of those incarcerated are African Americans. It changes the conversation about racism and incarceration in the country by presenting a whole new perspective on how the criminal justice system has relegated millions of people of color to second class status. Michelle Alexander states that mass incarceration was a retaliation against the civil rights gains of the 60s and 70s ( Alexander, 2010) . Law and order are being used as a code phrase for racial control to keep minority groups under social, economic, and political oppression. It is not just about a large number of black Americans in prison, but the curtailment of their rights after leaving prison that forms the basis of this oppression. The felons are excluded from employment opportunities after serving their terms.
This conversation can help change the criminal justice system in the country and end the laws that maintain racial disparities in the country. There should be a policy change that challenges the policies of mass incarceration and racial profiling in the country. Civil rights organizations today are also not solving this issue since they do not concern themselves with the moral aspects of the problem, only preferring to work on the legal point ( Alexander, 2010) . At the same time, most Americans are living in denial and willful ignorance of this reality as they continue to perpetuate the vice in society.
Conclusion
Therefore, mass incarceration represents the New Jim Crow that has continued to advance racism in the United States. This book appeals to individuals concerned with the racial injustices and wants to understand the current racial caste system. Therefore, it is an informative and compelling book that opened my eyes to the whole idea of racism in the country. The contents of this book advances the significant debate regarding the social, economic and political challenges brought by the New Jim Crow laws in the form of mass incarceration.
References
Alexander, M. (2010). The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness . The New Press, New York.
