Literature Review Mass Incarceration Of African Americans

Literature Review
In a remarkable analysis, Alexander (2010) made a fascinating comparisons of the modern struggles of blacks to dating back to the Jim Crow era. Alexander asserts that mass incarceration of African Americans is the “New Jim Crow” because it serves many of the same purposes of slavery over 100 years ago. Such disparity has not been changed as more and more African American men are under some sort of government supervision which are either incarcerated, awaiting trial, on probation or parole than slaves in 1850. For instance, the imprisonment of one in nine black men in 2006, demonstrates that black men were eight times more likely to be in jail or prison than their counterparts. Today’s colorblindness has used “police, prosecutors,

judges and legislators” (New Jim Crow, 2010 p.) as an excuse for reestablishing and maintaining a racial caste. This caste system simply rely on the unchecked discretions of both prosecutors and police officers. The war on drugs as Alexander pointed out in which majority of the people imprisoned for drug violations are African Americans or Latinos. Several studies have shown that blacks use drugs less than other racial groups but are disproportionately represented in jail or prison.
Throughout history, “blacks were discriminated against, disenfranchised, excluded from juries, prevented from brining legal challenges, denied other civil, political, and legal rights.” In this modern era, according to the constitution, states and federal government are in legal right to impose these same slave laws to convicts of all races. While state and federal governments are obligated by the Constitution to grant prisoners protection, however, private prison operators are not. Profitable business is been made as private owned prisons throughout the U.S. place their corporation in the stock market; receiving a jump from $8.00 a share to $30.00. This allows the felons or blacks who have been convicted of a crime, to be denied basic civil and political rights. Unfortunately, these convicts has “scarcely more rights, and arguably less respect, than a freed slave or a black person living free in Mississippi at the heights of Jim Crow.” (New Jim Crow, 2010 p.). With such imbalance, blacks will continue to remain a profit maker in the U.S.