{"id":3169,"date":"2021-02-22T10:33:10","date_gmt":"2021-02-22T16:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/?p=3169"},"modified":"2021-02-22T10:33:11","modified_gmt":"2021-02-22T16:33:11","slug":"historical-roots-of-racialized-mass-incarceration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/2021\/02\/22\/historical-roots-of-racialized-mass-incarceration\/","title":{"rendered":"Historical Roots of Racialized Mass Incarceration"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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A black and white image of a jail cell, bars in the foreground. Image via pixabay<\/a>, Pixabay License<\/a>.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The United States, with only 5% of the world\u2019s population, incarcerates nearly 20% of the world\u2019s prisoners<\/a>. At the peak of the mass incarceration era in 2000, one in three Black men<\/a> was projected to be incarcerated in his lifetime, compared to 1 in 17 White men. The racial disparities of the criminal-legal system are well-documented<\/a>, particularly for Black populations. How can we understand the origins of these racial disparities in mass incarceration in order to reduce or eliminate them?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arguably the most famous account of anti-black racism and mass incarceration, The New Jim Crow <\/em>remains a watershed work in literature on prisons. By tracing parallels between slavery, Jim Crow, and mass incarceration, law professor Michelle Alexander connects present-day criminal justice to the long history of American racial control to demonstrate how incarceration targets the Black community. Alexander\u2019s argument draws from key sociological findings about racial control, including the scholarship of Lo\u00efc Wacquant, Michael Tonry, and others.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Alexander traces the history of voting rights to show the connections between slavery, Jim Crow, and mass incarceration. Although Black men gained the right to vote following the abolition of slavery, during Jim Crow these voting rights were systematically violated. In 1940, only 3% of African Americans<\/a> in Louisiana were registered to vote. While the Voting Rights Act of 1965 reaffirmed these rights, issues of disenfranchisement remained, particularly as mass incarceration unfolded and more Black individuals lost their right to vote. Today, an estimated one in 16 Black adults<\/a> in the United States cannot vote due to a felony conviction. From Alexander\u2019s perspective, prisons are merely the latest iteration of racial control in the United States which limit the rights and livelihood of Black Americans.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n