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

by Michelle Alexander

In many respects, release from prison does not represent the beginning of freedom but instead a cruel new phase of stigmatization and control. Myriad laws, rules, and regulations discriminate against people with criminal records and effectively prevent their meaningful reintegration into the mainstream economy and society.

Mass incarceration, like Jim Crow, helps to define the meaning and significance of race in America. Indeed, the stigma of criminality functions in much the same way that the stigma of race once did. It justifies a legal, social, and economic boundary between “us” and “them.”