Arguments Against Mass Incarceration

Alexander argues that mass incarceration has emerged as a “well-disguised system of racialized social control that functions in a manner strikingly similar to Jim Crow” (4). To be labeled a ‘criminal’ is to be “relegated to a permanent second-class status,” forever excluded from mainstream society by law as well as custom (14). Upon release, convicted felons face legal discrimination in “voting, employment, housing, education, public benefits, and jury service” (17). Just like its predecessors, this latest iteration of the racial caste system was largely accomplished “by appealing to the racism and vulnerability of lower-class whites” (16).
How so? It began with Nixon, whose 1968 campaign strategy entailed ‘going after the racists’ (44). …show more content…
Law enforcement has “extraordinary discretion regarding whom to stop, search, arrest, and charge for drug offenses” (100)—and “when police go looking for drugs, they look in the ‘hood” (121). The militarized tactics police use in impoverished urban areas would be “political suicide in an upscale white suburb,” so even though whites are no less likely to use drugs, they are significantly less likely to be punished for it (121). Moreover, the police are “rewarded in cash” for sweeping “vast numbers of people” into the criminal justice system (180). By sanctioning racial profiling, the system “effectively [guarantees] that those who are swept into the system are primarily black and brown” (180).
The “genius” of this new system of social control is that it is officially defensible on “nonracial grounds” (100). Mass incarceration uses ‘colorblind’ policies “ranging from racial profiling to biased sentencing, political disenfranchisement, and legalized employment discrimination” (179) to permanently marginalize black and brown people. As a result, poor whites are safe from being relegated to the “bottom of the American totem pole”