The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

Alexander focuses here on how the racial caste system created by mass incarceration operates once a person leaves prison. She likens the condition of ex-prisoners in America to that of freedpeople living in the North prior to the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, or technically free men and women living under the terror and social inequities of the Jim Crow South. She writes, “The ‘whites only’ signs may be gone, but new signs have gone up—notices placed in job applications, rental agreements, loan applications, forms for welfare benefits, school applications, and petitions for licenses” (176). Having a felony on one’s record, she adds, leads to the same discrimination civil rights activists fought so hard to excise from American society in the 1960s.

In accepting a felony plea deal—even one that allows the defendant to avoid prison time—an individual enters a bleak reality that Alexander refers to as “civic death” (178). Individuals will likely not be told by their lawyer—and certainly not by prosecutors—that from then on, they may be denied federal health benefits, unemployment, public housing, food stamps, and student loans. In some cases, their driver’s license will be revoked, and they will certainly be ineligible for a wide array of professional licenses. Prospective employers will ask about their criminal history and likely disqualify them from a job on that basis. Some citizens will lose the right the vote, either temporarily or permanently. Noncitizens, meanwhile, are subject to immediate deportation.

Stable housing is arguably most important for ex-prisoners reentering society, and yet legislation passed during the Clinton presidency severely limited public housing options for individuals with criminal records. They are ineligible for Section 8 housing assistance and may be evicted by public housing landlords on the mere suspicion of illegal activity or even for legal alcohol use. Once again, the courts are responsible for exacerbating the situation faced by individuals with felonies on their record. For example, in 2000’s Rucker v. Davis, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that an individual living in public housing is civilly liable for nonviolent drug crimes committed by children or caregivers on the premises. As a result, families are often reluctant to allow relatives to stay with them in public housing after being released from prison. While national data on homeless parolees doesn’t exist, one study found that anywhere between 30% and 50% of individuals on parole in San Francisco and Los Angeles are homeless. Given that 650,000 people are released from prison annually, that may amount to hundreds of thousands of people who are homeless because of their criminal record.

Even though all 50 states and Washington, DC, require parolees to obtain employment or risk returning to prison, finding a job with a criminal record is extraordinarily difficult. This is largely due to “the box” (186), the job application question asking if the applicant has a felony conviction. Self-employment can be equally difficult to obtain, given that some states deny professional licenses to aspiring barbers and manicurists with criminal records. While construction and manufacturing positions are most likely to accept applicants with felony convictions, those jobs have disappeared from urban areas, and it is common for recently released prisoners to have no access to an automobile. Alexander writes, “Four decades ago, employers were free to discriminate explicitly on the basis of race; today employers feel free to discriminate against those who bear the prison label—i.e., those labeled criminals by the state” (189).

For those convicted of a crime who are fortunate enough to find a job, they may find their wages garnished to pay a host of administrative fees related to their incarceration. Florida alone has seen 20 new types of these so-called “poverty penalties” since 1996 (194). Despite the fact that debtor’s prisons are illegal in the United States, debt collectors are known to threaten to revoke a person’s parole for nonpayment. Meanwhile, in all but 13 states and Washington, DC, formerly incarcerated individuals are prohibited from receiving benefits through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families welfare program.

For many who are released from incarceration, voting for politicians or policies that might alleviate their plight is impossible. As of 2010, only two states allow incarcerated individuals to vote, and most states also deny parolees the right to vote. In some states a felony record disqualifies an individual from voting for life. In others, they must navigate a twisted bureaucracy to restore that right. Clinton Drake, a man arrested in Alabama in 1988 for possessing less than $10 worth of marijuana, must pay $900 to restore his right to vote. Given that his post-incarceration life is marked by periods of unemployment and underemployment, he cannot accumulate $900 in savings. Alexander cites reports stating that “had the 600,000 formerly incarcerated people who had completed their sentence in Florida been allowed to vote, Al Gore would have been elected president of the United States rather than George W. Bush” (200). Countless other formerly incarcerated individuals are frightened to register to vote because they fear contact with the government authorities.

Aside from the legal, civil, and financial burdens placed on the formerly incarcerated, they also face enormous psychological battles. Alexander writes, “Many people who have been ensnared by the system will tell you that the formal mechanisms of exclusion are not the worst of it. The shame and stigma that follow you for the rest of your life—they are the worst” (202). She debunks the myth that contemporary Black men have no shame over going to prison. Yet they carry this shame largely in silence, a silence often shared by their family members. Further, Alexander highlights a troubling false dichotomy between Black men convicted of a crime and the image of the good churchgoing Black man. She argues that this makes churches less of a refuge for those affected by mass incarceration than they should be.

Finally, Alexander examines the rise of gangsta rap culture in the context of mass incarceration. On one hand, she is troubled by the misogyny and the embrace of criminality in some gangsta rap songs. Even more than that, she is incredibly disturbed by the preponderance of gangsta rap culture on MTV and other mainstream media outlets that are largely targeted at white consumers, likening it to an exploitative “modern-day minstrel show” (216). Yet particularly for young Black youths, she points out, “There is absolutely nothing abnormal or surprising about a severely stigmatized group embracing their stigma. [...] Indeed, the act of embracing one’s stigma is never merely a psychological maneuver; it is a political act” (213).