Book Review: The New Jim Crow

"We have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it." (pg. 2)

Stars: 5/5

Author, Michelle Alexander, presents a compelling argument that there is a segment of society, the Undercaste, which is created and sustained by a vast system of law enforcement procedures, laws and social exclusion. Because it is designed to keep people of color in a perpetual cycle of marginality, Alexander resurrects a name from the past and labels this system The New Jim Crow.

Alexander describes how the system of Mass Incarceration begins with the `The Round-Up'. The War on Drugs, with its race-neutral language, is the vehicle in which "...a vast number of people are swept into the criminal justice system by the police who conduct drug operations primarily in poor communities of color." (pg. 180)   More of the racial undertow is revealed with a discussion on how the drug use of people of color vs. the drug use of White America is not proportional to the numbers of each being charged and sentenced.

Alexander, a professor of law and Civil Rights lawyer, details the next stage, Formal Control, and how felony charges are applied, how deals and plea bargains are made and how mandatory drug sentencing precludes anything but prison time and, most importantly, the label of `felon' or `criminal' .

In the final stage, Invisible Punishment, it is shown how after being released from prison the difficulties one faces mostly due to laws and sanctions, making re-integration back into mainstream society an almost impossibility. "Today a criminal freed from prison has scarcely more rights, and arguably less respect, than a freed slave or a black person living `free' in Mississippi at the height of Jim Crow." (pg. 138)

Although Alexander suggests that the remedy for this nearly invisible racial caste system is beyond the scope of this book, she does outline key principles that are needed to lead us down the road to reform.

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