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Alexander claims in “The New Jim Crow” that the US went from 300,000 incarcerated people in 1980 to over 2.2 million by 2010 by arresting and locking up low-level non-violent drug offenders. This is simply factually false. As Marc Mauer, John Pfaff and others point out... https://twitter.com/incogneattow/status/1296844959992012801
Most prisoners in state prisons (where 87% of US prisoners reside) are not there for low-level non-violent drug offenses. Good estimates put the percentages of such prisoners in state prisons at around 5-6%, at most. Most people in prison are there for violent or serious offenses
So a false narrative which frames the problem of racialized mass incarceration (“The New Jim Crow”) around low-level non-violent offenders implies that deep cuts in mass incarceration can be achieved “on the cheap,” that is, by releasing or diverting a lot of such offenders.
Suggesting that the problem of mass incarceration can be solved simply by showing more leniency for low-level non-violent offenders also invites a hardening of attitudes toward violent & serious offenders (studies I cite show this), making matters worse for them—the unforgiven.
So characterizing the problem of racialized mass incarceration in terms of low-level non-violent drug offenders leads to a false solution to the problem, namely, the release people convicted such crimes; this solution does not challenge our conventional moral framework or compass
Rather, the focus of the liberal New Jim Crow narrative on low-level-non-violent drug offenders reinforces—and is reinforced by—our conventional, traditional moral framework that sharply distinguishes morally, legally, and socially between violent and non-violent wrongdoers.
In “N*gga Theory” I frame an entirely new moral, legal, and political theory that replaces our current approach to violent offenders (which is rooted in values of retribution, retaliation, & revenge) with one rooted in restoration, rehabilitation, and redemption.
