Marked: Race, Crime, and Finding Work in an Era of Mass Incarceration

Calls for criminal justice reform have mounted since the 2007 publication of Marked: Race, Crime, and Finding Work in an Era of Mass Incarceration, largely because of high profile incidents of racism and racialized violence. Black Lives Matter (BLM), a decentralized movement highlighting racial inequality, emerged in 2013 after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed Black teenager visiting a family friend in Sanford, Florida (Baldwin). The hashtag #BlackLivesMatter spread on social media and BLM gained national recognition the following year after the police killing of two Black men: Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and Eric Garner in New York City. Both incidents spurred protests across the United States.

Racial tensions reached a breaking point in the spring of 2020, during nationwide COVID-19 lockdowns. On May 25, 46-year-old George Floyd died after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for over nine minutes (Hill et al). Floyd was unarmed, handcuffed, and lying face-down on the pavement at the time. Bystanders recorded the incident and tried to intervene when Floyd complained of being unable to breath. Floyd’s death fueled mass demonstrations throughout 2020 (Bryson Taylor). Protests began in Minneapolis hours after his death and quickly spread to more than 2,000 cities and towns worldwide. In the US alone, as many as 26 million people participated in BLM demonstrations in the summer of 2020, making the protests the largest in the country’s history.

There are three main components to the criminal justice system: the police, the courts, and corrections. Pager’s book addressed court and corrections reform. By contrast, the George Floyd protests called for police reform. Protesters made disparate demands in 2020, including an end to police violence against Black people. The protests spurred nationwide debates about racial discrimination, which led to several legislative changes. For example, some states banned police from using carotid chokeholds, while others passed laws with the intention of preventing police brutality and racial profiling (Ferré-Sadumí, Mays, and Southall). In Minneapolis, the place of Floyd’s death, calls to defund the police led to the reallocation of roughly $8 million of the city’s police budget to violence prevention programs (Gross and Eligon). Engendering further reforms demands the continued efforts of various social groups, including activists, lawmakers, and scholars.