Similarities Between Jim Crow And Mass Incarceration

Many people would not think that a racial caste system exists in the United States, especially after Barack Obama was elected as a president. However, having a few successful African Americans doesn’t necessarily mean racism is abolished. During the last thirty years, United States’ incarceration rates have soared while other countries’ incarceration rates remained the same or decreased. Not only that, the incarcerated population in the United States is racially disproportionate; about 90% of the prisoners are African Americans or Hispanics in most of the states. Although the studies show that people of all colors use and sell illegal drugs at similar rates, African American men have been admitted to prison on drug charges at twenty to fifty …show more content…
After President Reagan announced the War on Drugs, crack cocaine began to spread in African American communities. The House passed the legislation allowing the death penalty for some drug-related crimes and authorized the admission of some illegally obtained evidence to drug courts. Also, a five-year minimum sentence was mandatory for possession of cocaine base. Furthermore, punishment for distribution of crack, which was associated with blacks, was much more severe than that of powder, which was associated with whites. Just like the Jim Crow, after prisoners are released from the prison, they are denied the right to vote, excluded from the juries, and relegated to a racially segregated and subordinated existence. Even the public housing projects exclude anyone with a criminal history, leaving many of the racial minorities locked out of mainstream society and their homes. Alexander claims that the War on Drugs and the Jim Crow both has tough standards only for African Americans are new systems of racialized social control created by exploiting the vulnerabilities and racial resentments of poor, working-class