Michelle Alexander: “A System of Racial and Social Control”
Why should we care? Why should we pay attention to this? ■ I think most Americans have no idea of the scale and scope of mass incarceration in the United States. Unless you’re directly impacted by the system, unless you have a loved one who’s behind bars, unless you’ve done time yourself, unless you have a family member who’s been branded a criminal and felon and can’t get work, can’t find housing, denied even food stamps to survive, unless the system directly touches you, it’s hard to even imagine that something of this scope and scale could even exist. But the reality is that today there are more African Americans under correctional control in prison or jail, on probation or parole, than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the civil war began. More black men are disenfranchised today as a result of felony disenfranchise[ment] laws. They were denied the right to vote in 1870, the year the 15th Amendment was ratified, prohibiting the laws that denied the right to vote on the basis of race.
Frontline: Solitary Nation + Prison State (Videos)
Lance Tapley ■ The Worst of the Worst: Supermax Torture in America
Stephen Lendman ■ Filling Prison Beds for Profit + Torture in US Prisons