In: Psychology
A classmate reaches out to you for a suggestion of a book that addresses the problem of mass incarceration in our society. Suggest either The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander or On the Run by Alice Goffman by summarizing the argument that it makes about mass incarceration and why you think the book is useful for helping to understand the phenomenon.
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness is a book by Michelle Alexander. The book discusses issues that are related to African-American males and mass incarceration in the United States, but Alexander notes that the discrimination faced by African-American males that also exists among other minorities and socio-economically disadvantaged populations. Alexander's focus, from which the book gets its title, is that "mass incarceration is, metaphorically, the New Jim Crow".
She believes that mass incarceration is essentially a well disguised system of of control that is extremely similar to Jom Crow. Here, all the people of colour are kept in an inferior position in an attempt to stratify society. Thus, Alexander aims to mobilize society and the civil rights community to move this issue to its forefront. Her broader goal is the revamping of the prevailing mentality regarding human rights, equality and equal opportunities in America, to prevent future cyclical recurrence of what she sees as "racial control under changing disguise".