Mass Incarceration Parallels with Jim Crow Anonymous College

Mass incarceration has not only emerged as a racialized form of social control fueled by politician’s strategies to gain political status, but has perpetuated a national epidemic characterized by unequal civil liberties and an endless cycle of crime. This cannot be stopped until American’s accept the severe reality of the situation and drug laws and law enforcement policies are radically changed. Michelle Alexander further explains this phenomenon in her book The New Jim Crow.

Alexander argues that mass incarceration in the United States was developed primarily as a form of social control and identifies the War on Drugs as the main cause. The general public assumption is that the War on Drugs was launched in response to the crisis caused by crack cocaine in inner city neighborhoods. This view furthers the idea that the racial disparities seen in drug convictions and sentences, which are disproportional to blacks and Hispanics (Tonry 2016, 4), as well as the rapid growth in prison population, are simply a reflection of the government’s efforts to combat drug crime in poor, minority neighborhoods (Alexander 2016, 7). Alexander however, declares that this is wrong.

In the 1960s, the social, political, and economic pressures felt...