Synopsis
An argument that mass incarceration functions as a new racial caste system, legally relegating Black Americans much as Jim Crow once did.
Core passage idea
Paraphrase · Modern copyrighted workThe war on drugs and mass imprisonment created a racial caste system that strips Black Americans of rights under the cover of color-blind law.
It recasts criminal justice as the latest form of racial control, exposing how neutral-sounding policy reproduces old hierarchies.
To avoid a bubble
Pair with Angela Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete?.
Reading note
Read its caste framing as a deliberate analytic claim, backed by data on policing, sentencing, and disenfranchisement.
Best paired with
Angela Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete?