1. In Michelle Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow”, Alexander claims that mass incarcerations in the United States are a direct result of the US government’s War on Drugs. She asserts that in 1985 a media campaign, led by then-president Ronald Reagan, saturated the media with images of black Americans struggling with crack addiction that led to panic amongst white citizens. The success of this campaign garnered public and legislative support for the War on Drugs. The War on Drugs, however, was not created as a response to the crack epidemic – it actually began several years earlier when illegal drug use in the US was on decline. This fact led to theories that the War on Drugs and Law and Order policies were actually a dogwhistle used by politicians to garner votes from Americans that sought to keep black Americans “in their place.” Perhaps as a replacement for the recently abolished Jim Crow laws. During the time of the War on Drugs, despite illegal drug use being in decline, drug related arrests and convictions skyrocketed notably amongst minority populations. Alexander notes that statistically, all races of people use and sell illegal drugs at remarkably similar rates and yet in some states black incarcerations are 20 to 50 times greater than white incarcerations.
  2. Racial disparities in the rates of incarceration cannot be explained by rates of drug crimes because, as I touched on in my previous response, all races sell and use illegal drugs at similar rates.
  3. the phrase: “the American penal system has emerged as a system of social control unparalleled in world history” in my opinion, means that racist politicians were extremely successful in what they had set out to accomplish. By targeting minorities and impoverished citizens they are not only able to ensure that many people of color remain incarcerated and away from society for significant periods of their lives, if not the entirely of their lives, but even if these people are released from jail they are face with legal discrimination for the rest of their lives. the US has the highest incarceration rate in the world, surpassing those of highly oppressive regimes such as Russia, China, and Iran.

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