Mass Incarceration: A Form of Racism?

Alexander’s point is this: The war on drugs has disproportionately targeted poor and minority youths. They don’t use drugs more often than white middle- and upper-class youths, but they get arrested at a much higher rate. Their higher arrest rate has a huge impact on the rest of their lives. They can’t get good jobs or good housing. They are excluded from many public benefits, they can’t vote, they can’t serve on juries. This is “the new Jim Crow.” They are punished for a lifetime because of a mistake they made at a young age.

Her question over and over was, What would Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. think of this? Was this his dream?

There is something wrong with a law that so disproportionately targets young black and Latino men. There is something wrong with a law that punishes young people so severely for a mistake that is so benign compared to legal activities like drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes.

In 2011, I wrote about one of my legal heroes: John Adams. John Adams stood up for the legal and moral rights of unpopular British soldiers because he believed that the law couldn’t anyone if it didn’t protect everyone. Alexander’s argument is that the war on drugs has left poor minorities open to legal employment, housing, and benefit discrimination based on convictions for things that their white and wealthier colleagues do without very much fear of punishment.

I am still grappling to know what I should do to stop what Alexander calls “mass incarceration.” I didn’t become a criminal defense lawyer to usher people into that kind of system.

One of Alexander’s most compelling suggestions is to create a “new underground railroad” to help people make it back from prison to productive lives and employment. If you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them.