The New Jim Crow Laws

The southern United States is often the victim of its own history, where racial biases and prejudices restricted the civil rights and liberties of African Americans. Following the civil war during the reconstruction period, Jim Crow laws enforced racial segregation in all public facilities in what once was the Confederate States of America. These laws shaped the United States for years to come and according to Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow have created a modern day social caste system, one where African Americans are restrained in a limited position in the social hierarchy.
Racial caste is alive and well in the United States. In a generation that elected an African American as their president, supports Black History month and sees

an abundance of black leaders in the public spotlight, mass incarceration is an all too real omen to the notion that racial equality is still on the horizon.
In 1986, the U.S. Congress passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, which amongst other things, created a 100 to 1 sentencing disparity for crack vs. powder cocaine possession, which some people consider to be a racist law that discriminates against minorities. Alexander points to the United States having the world’s highest incarceration rate, booming prison populations contributed to drug convictions. The bias that African Americans receive by law enforcement polices and tactics all lead to a double standard where African American youth face time behind bars and receive a second-class status that follows them everywhere in life. While the book states that different races consume illegal drugs at similar rates, the harsh reality remains where in some states black men have been sent to prison on drug charges at rates twenty to fifty times those of white men. This number is a serious reminder that police officers reinforce racial stereotypes of what is perceived to be a criminal and conduct their operations in a manner that doesn’t serve proper justice.
The court system essentially gives little to no effort to any impoverished African American youth, and many accept plea bargains or lesser sentences rather than facing a overcrowded judicial system that paints a picture of life in jail before the defendant is able to take the stand.

The War on Drugs has not deterred the use or sale of narcotics in this country and has instead only singled out people, defined by their race. Alexander compares the mass incarceration of minorities under harsh treatment by police enforcement and court systems as the new form of the south’s Jim Crow laws. The epidemic of crack cocaine in inner cities that forced Reagan’s hand to begin the Drug War only fueled mass imprisonment of African-Americans when in contradiction, whites and any other racial group for the matter, also engage in such criminal activity. Alexander puts estimates that whites may actually use drugs more frequently in proportion to their population. But the enforcement selectively hurts minorities more frequently than it hurts

whites.
Ultimately, there are few rules that constrain police in the War on Drugs. Consequently, it is very easy for them to make arrests and detainments or to find drugs if they are present. Many court cases have been brought and usually been found to have expanded the power of the government in drug searches repeatedly, to the point where one wonders if it is a violation of the Fourth Amendment. Alexander documents this phenomenon and court cases that have made "racially discriminatory enforcement" drug policies into an impossible and unworkable defense for any criminal. The division often can be seen to fall on poverty lines, too. No doubt that this is significant. Alexander’s argument is that this new system of racial caste, called mass incarceration, is a contributing element in the cycle of poverty enforced upon minorities, and not merely an effect of the cycle.
Alexander cites that few people in drug crimes go to trial. They usually plead out. So, even in cases of innocence, you will be found plead guilty, because you don't have the resources not to. Once in, the odds of getting out and going back are astronomical. Under the current laws, the conditions are not conducive to people overcoming addiction or being rehabilitated. Then, of course, once out, they cannot get a job or welfare because of felony convictions. The social stigma of being a convicted felon – even for minor offenses of marijuana possession, leave a long lasting burden on one’s life when seeking employment or a stable social life and many are often forced to homelessness or even suicide.
Alexander highlights the extraordinary number of African American men, “locked away in cages.” In a chapter titled How It Works, Alexander demonstrates three stages that define the entrapment towards such minorities.

The first stage, known as the roundup, sweeps vast numbers into the criminal justice system by police who are rewarded in cash through drug forfeiture laws and federal grant programs for rounding up as many people as possible. Uninhibited by constitutional rules of procedure, police can stop, interrogate and search anyone, granting racial biases free rein. The second stage, involves the conviction of a defendant who is denied meaningful representation and pressured to plead guilty while prosecutors are able to seek extra charges with any decision immune from review of any racial bias. Some advocates have dubbed the final stage as the period of invisible punishment. This term is meant to describe the unique set of criminal sanctions that are imposed on individuals after they step outside the prison gates, a form of punishment that largely operates outside of public view and takes effect outside the traditional sentencing framework. These laws operate collectively to ensure that the vast majority of convicted offenders will never integrate. They will be discriminated against, legally, for the rest of their lives and denied employment, housing, education, and public benefits. Many will eventually return to prison and then be released again, caught in a closed

circuit of perpetual imprisonment with no ability to break the barriers constraining their lives.
Alexander focuses on mass incarceration, which shares a great deal of underlying characteristics, namely a systematized control of minorities that keeps them oppressed as a system of racial caste in a fashion similar to the oppressive nature of the Jim Crow laws of the past. The War on Drugs merely operates as a scapegoat and a vessel for law enforcement to enact the racial bias and bigotry that once fueled this nation through many civil rights movements.