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

by Michelle Alexander

  35 John Donovan, The Politics of Poverty (Indianapolis: Pegasus, 1973), 23.

  36 Gerald McKnight, The Last Crusade: Martin Luther King, Jr., the FBI, and the Poor People’s Campaign (New York: Westview Press, 1998), 21-22.

  37 Richard Nixon, “If Mob Rule Takes Hold in U.S.,” U.S. News and World Report , Aug. 15, 1966, 64.

  38 U.S. House, “Northern Congressmen Want Civil Rights but Their Constituents Do Not Want Negroes,” Congressional Record, 86th Cong., 2d sess. (1960) 106, pt. 4: 5 062-63.

  39 Katherine Beckett, Making Crime Pay: Law and Order in Contemporary American Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 32.

  40 Vesla M. Weaver, “Frontlash: Race and the Development of Punitive Crime Policy,” Studies in American Political Development 21 (Fall 2007): 242.

  41 Barry Goldwater, “Peace Through Strength,” in Vital Speeches of the Day, vol. 30 (New York: City News, 1964), 744.

  42 “Poverty: Phony Excuse for Riots? Yes, Says a Key Senator,” U.S. News and World Report, July 31, 1967, 14.

  43 Joel Rosch, “Crime as an Issue in American Politics,” in The Politics of Crime and Criminal Justice (Beverley Hills: Sage Publications, 1985).

  44 Beckett, Making Crime Pay, 32.

  45 Marc Mauer, Race to Incarcerate (New York: The New Press, 1999), 52.

  46 Weaver, “Frontlash,” 262.

  47 Ibid.

  48 Klarman, From Jim Crow to Civil Rights, 110.

  49 See, e.g., Patrick Buchanan, The New Majority: President Nixon at Mid-Passage (Philadelphia: Girard Bank, 1973).

  50 Willard M. Oliver, The Law & Order Presidency (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2003), 127-28, citing Dan Baum, Smoke and Mirrors: The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure (Boston: Little, Brown, 1996), 13.

  51 John Ehrlichman, Witness to Power: The Nixon Years (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1970), 233.

  52 Ibid.

  53 See Kevin Phillips, The Emerging Republican Majority (New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House, 1969).

  54 Warren Weaver, “The Emerging Republican Majority,” New York Times, Sept. 21, 1969.

  55 Beckett, Making Crime Pay, 34.

  56 Lyndon Johnson, “Remarks on the City Hall Steps, Dayton, Ohio,” in Public Papers of the Presidents 1963-64, vol. 2 (1965), 1371.

  57 Thomas Byrne Edsall and Mary D. Edsall, Chain Reaction: The Impact of Race, Rights, and Taxes on American Politics (New York: Norton, 1992), 12-13.

  58 Ibid., 38.

  59 Ibid., 74.

  60 Weaver, “Frontlash,” 259.

  61 See Philip A. Klinker and Rogers M. Smith, The Unsteady March: The Rise and Decline of Racial Equality in America (University of Chicago Press, 1999), 292.

  62 Edsall and Edsall, Chain Reaction, 4.

  63 Ibid., 138; see also Jeremy Mayer, Running on Race (New York: Random House, 2002), 71.

  64 Ibid.

  65 Bob Herbert, “Righting Reagan’s Wrongs?” New York Times, Nov. 13, 2007; see also Paul Krugman, “Republicans and Race,” New York Times, Nov. 19, 2007.

  66 Edsall and Edsall, Chain Reaction, 148, quoting New York Times, Feb. 15, 1976.

  67 Ibid., quoting Washington Post, Jan. 28, 1976.

  68 Dick Kirschten, “Jungle Warfare,” National Journal, Oct. 3, 1981.

  69 Edsall and Edsall, Chain Reaction, 164.

  70 Beckett, Making Crime Pay, 47.

  71 Ibid., 56; see also Julian Roberts, “Public Opinion, Crime and Criminal Justice,” in Crime and Justice: A Review of Research, vol. 16, ed. Michael Tonry (University of Chicago Press, 1992).

  72 Beckett, Making Crime Pay, 53, citing Executive Office of the President, Budget of the U.S. Government (1990).

  73 Ibid., citing U.S. Office of the National Drug Control Policy, National Drug Control Strategy (1992).

  74 Ibid.

  75 Ibid., 56.

  76 See William Julius Wilson, When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor (New York: Vintage, 1997).

  77 Ibid., 31 (citing John Kasarda, “Urban Industrial Transition and the Underclass,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 501, no. 1 (1990): 26-47.

  78 Ibid., 30 (citing data from the Chicago Urban Poverty and Family Life Survey conducted in 1987 and 1988).

  79 Ibid., 39.

  80 Ibid., 27.

  81 Robert Stutman, Dead on Delivery: Inside the Drug Wars, Straight from the Street (New York: Warner Books, 1992), 142.

  82 See Craig Reinarman and Harry Levine, “The Crack Attack: America’s Latest Drug Scare, 1986-1992,” in Images of Issues: Typifying Contemporary Social Problems (New York: Aldine De Gruyter, 1995).

  83 Ibid., 154.

  84 Ibid., 170-71.

  85 Doris Marie Provine, Unequal Under Law: Race in the War on Drugs (University of Chicago Press, 2007), 111, citing Congressional Record 132 (Sept. 24, 1986): S 13741.

  86 Provine, Unequal Under Law, 117.

  87 Mark Peffley, Jon Hurwitz, and Paul Sniderman, “Racial Stereotypes and Whites’ Political Views of Blacks in the Context of Welfare and Crime,” American Journal of Political Science 41, no. 1 (1997): 30-60; Martin Gilens, “Racial Attitudes and Opposition to Welfare,” Journal of Politics 57, no. 4 (1995): 994-1014; Kathlyn Taylor Gaubatz, Crime in the Public Mind (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995); and John Hurwitz and Mark Peffley, “Public Perceptions of Race and Crime: The Role of Racial Stereotypes,” American Journal of Political Science 41, no. 2 (1997): 375-401.

  88 See Frank Furstenberg, “Public Reaction to Crime in the Streets,” American Scholar 40 (1971): 601-10; Arthur Stinchcombe, et al., Crime and Punishment in America: Changing Attitudes in America (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1980); Michael Corbett, “Public Support for Law and Order: Interrelationships with System Affirmation and Attitudes Toward Minorities,” Criminology 19 (1981): 337.

  89 Stephen Earl Bennett and Alfred J. Tuchfarber, “The Social Structural Sources of Cleavage on Law and Order Policies,” American Journal of Political Science 19 (1975): 419-38; Sandra Browning and Liqun Cao, “The Impact of Race on Criminal Justice Ideology,” Justice Quarterly 9 (Dec. 1992): 685-99; and Steven F. Cohn, Steven E. Barkan, and William A. Halteman, “Punitive Attitudes Toward Criminals: Racial Consensus or Racial Conflict?” Social Problems 38 (1991): 287-96.

  90 Beckett, Making Crime Pay, 44.

  91 Ibid., citing New York Times/CBS News Poll, Aug. 1990, 2-4).

  92 See Beckett, Making Crime Pay, 14-27.

  93 “Ku Klux Klan Says It Will Fight Drugs,” Toledo Journal, Jan. 3-9, 1990.

  94 Michael Kramer, “Frying Them Isn’t the Answer,” Time, Mar. 14, 1994, 32.

  95 David Masci, “$30 Billion Anti-Crime Bill Heads to Clinton’s Desk,” Congressional Quarterly, Aug. 27, 1994, 2488-93; and Beckett, Making Crime Pay, 61.

  96 Justice Policy Institute, “Clinton Crime Agenda Ignores Proven Methods for Reducing Crime,” Apr. 14, 2008, available online at www.justicepolicy.org/content-hmID=1817&smID=1571&ssmID=71.htm.

  97 Address Before a Joint Session of Congress on the State of the Union, Jan. 23, 1996.

  98 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Meeting the Challenge: Public Housing Authorities Respond to the ‘One Strike and You’re Out’Initiative, Sept. 1997, v.

  Chapter 2: The Lockdown

  1 See Marc Mauer, Race to Incarcerate, rev. ed. (New York: The New Press, 2006), 33.

  2 Marc Mauer and Ryan King, A 25-Year Quagmire: The “War on Drugs” and Its Impact on American Society (Washington, DC: Sentencing Project, 2007), 2.

  3 Ibid., 3.

  4 Ibid., 2-3.

  5 Ibid.; and Ryan King and Marc Mauer, The War on Marijuana: The Transformation of the War on Drugs in the 1990s (New York: Sentencing Project, 2005), documenting the dramatic increase in marijuana arrests. Marijuana is a relatively harmless drug. The 1988 surgeon general’s report lists tobacco as a more dangerous drug than marijuana, and Francis Young, an administrative law judge for the Drug Enforcement Admin
istration found there are no credible medical reports to suggest that consuming marijuana, in any dose, has ever caused a single death. U.S. Department of Justice, Drug Enforcement Administration, Opinion and Recommended Ruling, Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law and Decision of Administrative Law Judge Francis L. Young, in the Matter of Marijuana Rescheduling Petition, Docket no. 86-22, Sept. 6, 1988, 56-57. By comparison, tobacco kills roughly 390,000 Americns annually, and alcohol is responsible for some 150,000 U.S. deaths a year. See Doug Bandow, “War on Drugs or War on America?” Stanford Law and Policy Review 3: 242, 245 (1991).

  6 Pew Center on the States, One in 31: The Long Reach of American Corrections (Washington, DC: Pew Charitable Trusts, Mar. 2009).

  7 Skinner v. Railway Labor Executive Association, 489 U.S. 602, 641 (1980), Marshall, J., dissenting.

  8 California v. Acevedo, 500 U.S. 565, 600 (1991), Stevens. J., dissenting.

  9 Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 30 (1968).

  10 Ibid., Douglas J., dissenting.

  11 See generally United States v. Lewis, 921 F.2d 1294, 1296 (1990); United States v. Flowers, 912 F.2d 707, 708 (4th Cir. 1990); and Florida v. Bostick, 501 U.S. 429, 441 (1991).

  12 See, e.g., Florida v. Kerwick, 512 So.2d 347, 349 (Fla. App. 4 Dist. 1987).

  13 See United States v. Flowers, 912 F.2d 707, 710 (4th Cir. 1990).

  14 Bostick v. State, 554 So. 2d 1153, 1158 (Fla. 1989), quoting State v. Kerwick, 512 So.2d 347, 348-49 (Fla. 4th DCA 1987).

  15 In re J.M., 619 A.2d 497, 501 (D.C. App. 1992).

  16 Illinois Migrant Council v. Pilliod, 398 F. Supp. 882, 899 (N.D. Ill. 1975).

  17 Tracy Maclin, “Black and Blue Encounters—Some Preliminary Thoughts About Fourth Amendment Seizures: Should Race Matter?” Valparaiso University Law Review 26 (1991): 249-50.

  18 Florida v. Bostick, 501 U.S. 429, 441 n. 1 (1991), Marshall, J., dissenting.

  19 Maclin, “Black and Blue Encounters.”

  20 Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 229 (1973).

  21 See Illinois v. Caballes, 543 U.S. 405 (2005) and United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696 (1983).

  22 See U.S. Department of Justice, Drug Enforcement Administration, Operations Pipeline and Convoy (Washington, DC, n.d.), www.usdoj.gov/dea/programs/pipecon.htm.

  23 Ricardo J. Bascuas, “Fourth Amendment Lessons from the Highway and the Subway: A Principled Approach to Suspicionless Searches,” Rutgers Law Journal 38 (2007): 719, 763.

  24 State v. Rutherford, 93 Ohio App.3d 586, 593-95, 639 N.E. 2d 498, 503-4, n. 3 (Ohio Ct. App. 1994).

  25 Gary Webb, “Driving While Black,” Esquire, Apr. 1, 1999, 122.

  26 Ibid.

  27 Scott Henson, Flawed Enforcement: Why Drug Task Force Highway Interdiction Violates Rights, Wastes Tax Dollars, and Fails to Limit the Availability of Drugs in Texas (Austin: American Civil Liberties Union—Texas Chapter, May 2004), 9, www.aclu.org/racialjustice/racialprofiling/15897pub20040519.html.

  28 David Cole, No Equal Justice: Race and Class in the American Criminal Justice System (New York: The New Press, 1999), 47.

  29 Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, Office of General Counsel, Common Characteristics of Drug Couriers (1984), sec. I.A.4.

  30 Cole, No Equal Justice, 49.

  31 “Fluid Drug Courier Profiles See Everyone As Suspicious,” Criminal Practice Manual 5 (Bureau of National Affairs: July 10, 1991): 334-35.

  32 Mauer and King, 25-Year Quagmire, 3.

  33 Katherine Beckett, Making Crime Pay: Law and Order in Contemporary American Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 45; and Mauer, Race to Incarcerate, 49.

  34 U.S. Department of Justice, Department of Justice Drug Demand Reduction Activities, Report No. 3-12 (Washington, DC: Office of the Inspector General, Feb. 2003), 35, www.usdoj.gov/oig/reports/plus/a0312.

  35 Radley Balko, Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America (Washington, DC: Cato Institute, July 17, 2006), 8.

  36 Megan Twohey, “SWATs Under Fire,” National Journal, Jan. 1, 2000, 37; Balko, Overkill, 8.

  37 Timothy Egan, “Soldiers of the Drug War Remain on Duty,” New York Times, Mar. 1, 1999.

  38 Ibid., 8-9.

  39 Scott Andron, “SWAT: Coming to a Town Near You?” Miami Herald, May 20, 2002.

  40 Balko, Overkill, 11, citing Peter Kraska, “Researching the Police-Military Blur: Lessons Learned,” Police Forum 14, no. 3 (2005).

  41 Balko, Overkill, 11, citing Britt Robson, “Friendly Fire,” Minneapolis City Pages, Sept. 17, 1997.

  42 Ibid., 43 (citing Kraska research).

  43 Ibid., 49 (citing Village Voice).

  44 Ibid., 50; “Not All Marijuana Law Victims Are Arrested: Police Officer Who Fatally Shot Suspected Marijuana User Cleared of Criminal Charges,” NORML News, July 13, 1995, druglibrary.org/olsen/NORML/WEEKLY/95-07-13.html; Timothy Lynch, After Prohibition (Washington, DC: Cato Institute, 2000), 82; and various sources citing “Dodge County Detective Can’t Remember Fatal Shot; Unarmed Man Killed in Drug Raid at His Home,” Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Apr. 29, 1995, A1, and “The Week,” National Review, June 12, 1995, 14.

  45 Ibid., 10, citing Steven Elbow, “Hooked on SWAT: Fueled with Drug Enforcement Money, Military-Style Police Teams Are Exploding in the Backwoods of Wisconsin,” Madison Capitol Times, Aug. 18, 2001.

  46 Eric Blumenson and Eva Nilson, “Policing for Profit: The Drug War’s Hidden Economic Agenda,” University of Chicago Law Review 65 (1998): 35, 45.

  47 Ibid., 64.

  48 Blumenson and Nilson, “Policing for Profit,” 72.

  49 Ibid., 71.

  50 Ibid., 82.

  51 Ibid.

  52 Ibid., 83.

  53 Ibid.

  54 Ibid.

  55 Ibid., 98.

  56 Michael Fessier Jr., “Trail’s End Deep in a Wild Canyon West of Malibu, a Controversial Law Brought Together a Zealous Sheriff’s Deputy and an Eccentric Recluse; a Few Seconds Later, Donald Scott Was Dead,” Los Angeles Times Magazine, Aug. 1, 1993; and Office of the District Attorney of Ventura, California, Report on the Death of Donald Scott (Ventura: Mar. 30, 1993), available at www.fear.org/chron/scott.txt.

  57 Peter D. Lepsch, “Wanted: Civil Forfeiture Reform,” Drug Policy Letter, Summer 1997, 12.

  58 James Massey, Susan Miller, and Anna Wilhelmi, “Civil Forfeiture of Property: The Victimization of Women as Innocent Owners and Third Parties,” in Crime Control and Women, ed. Susan Miller (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998), 17.

  59 United States v. One Parcel of Real Estate Located at 9818 S.W. 94 Terrace, 788 F. Supp. 561, 565 (S.D. Fla. 1992).

  60 David Hunt, “Obama Fields Questions on Jacksonville Crime,” Florida Times-Union, Sept. 22, 2008.

  61 John Balzar, “The System: Deals, Deadlines, Few Trials,” Los Angeles Times, Sept. 4, 2006.

  62 Marc Mauer and Ryan S. King, Schools and Prisons: Fifty Years After Brown v. Board of Education (Washington, DC: Sentencing Project, Apr. 2004), 4.

  63 Laura Parker, “8 Years in a Louisiana Jail but He Never Went to Trial,” USA Today, Aug. 29, 2005.

  64 Mauer and King, Schools and Prisons, 4.

  65 American Bar Association, Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defendants, Gideon’s Broken Promise: America’s Continuing Quest for Equal Justice (Washington, DC: American Bar Association, Dec. 2004), Executive Summary IV; adopted by American Bar Association House of Delegates, Aug. 9, 2005, www.abanet.org/leadership/2005/annual/dailyjournal/107.doc.

  66 Parker, “8 Years in a Louisiana Jail.”

  67 Kim Brooks and Darlene Kamine, eds., Justice Cut Short: An Assessment of Access to Counsel and Quality of Representation in Delinquency Proceedings In Ohio (Columbus: Ohio State Bar Foundation, Mar. 2003), 28.

  68 Mauer, Race to Incarcerate, 35-37.

  69 See Angela J. Davis, Arbitrary Justice: The Power of the American Prosecutor (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 31-33.

  70 See Alexandra Natapoff, “Sn
itching: The Institutional and Communal Consequences,” University of Cincinnati Law Review 645 (2004); and Emily Jane Dodds, “I’ll Make You a Deal: How Repeat Informants Are Corrupting the Criminal Justice System and What to Do About It,” William and Mary Law Review 50 (2008): 1063.

  71 See “Riverside Drug Cases Under Review Over Use of Secret Informant,” Associated Press, Aug. 20, 2004; Ruben Narvette Jr., “Blame Stretches Far and Wide in Drug Scandal,” Dallas Morning News, Nov. 14, 2003; Rob Warden, How Snitch Testimony Sent Randy Steidl and Other Innocent Americans to Death Row (Chicago: Northwestern University School of Law, Center for Wrongful Convictions, 2004-5); “The Informant Trap,” National Law Journal, Mar. 6, 1995; Steven Mills and Ken Armstrong, “The Jailhouse Informant,” Chicago Tribune, Nov. 16, 1999; and Ted Rohrlich and Robert Stewart, “Jailhouse Snitches: Trading Lies for Freedom,” Los Angeles Times, Apr. 16, 1989.

  72 See Adam Liptak, “Consensus on Counting the Innocent: We Can’t,” The New York Times, Mar. 25, 2008; and Adam Liptak, “Study Suspects Thousands of False Confessions,” New York Times, Apr. 19, 2004.

  73 Christopher J. Mumola and Jennifer C. Karberg, Drug Use and Dependence, State and Federal Prisoners, 2004 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Oct. 2006); and Ashley Nellis, Judy Greene, and Marc Mauer, Reducing Racial Disparity in the Criminal Justice System: A Manual for Practitioners and Policymakers, 2d ed. (Washington, DC: Sentencing Project, 2008), 8.

  74 Hutto v. Davis, 454 U.S. 370 (1982).

  75 Harmelin v. Michigan, 501 U.S. 967 (1991).

  76 Marc Mauer, “The Hidden Problem of Time Served in Prison,” Social Research 74, no. 2 (Summer 2007): 701, 703.

  77 Lockyer v. Andrade, 538 U.S. 63 (2003).

  78 Anne Gearam, “Supreme Court Upholds ‘Three Strikes Law,’” Associated Press, Mar. 5, 2003.

  79 See Families Against Mandatory Minimums, “Profiles of Injustice,” at www.famm.org/ProfilesofInjustice/FederalProfiles/MarcusBoyd.aspx.

  80 Marc Mauer, “Hidden Problem,” 701-2.

  81 “Criticizing Sentencing Rules, US Judge Resigns,” New York Times, Sept. 30, 1990.