The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander - Essay Example

Impact of Mass Incarceration and Michelle Alexander’s Stance Mass incarceration remains one of the critical issues in the American Society. The aim of this paper is to assess the impact of mass incarceration on the African Americans in United States. The assessment of the impact has been done with the reference of The New Jim Crow written by Michelle Alexander. Also, the paper will also discuss about Michelle Alexander who has researched the impact from different point of views. Michelle Alexander is an associate professor at the Ohio State University who gained worldwide recognition because of her first ever book entitled The New Jim Crow.

Michelle Alexander has spoken on various events regarding the wrong judgmental basis when it comes to races in United States. The author of the most read book The New Jim Crow explains that the incarceration is itself a negative event in the history of America to which majority of the Americans also poses criticism (Alexander, 2013).The mass incarceration led into a major racial discrimination problem in United States. The mass imprisonment of a great deal of African Americans after the civil rights movement has proven that the policies of United States in terms of justice system remained weaker.

Mass incarceration remains an issue in the present times as well. The ratio of mass incarceration seems to increase in the present times (Alexander, 2013). Talking about the impact that mass incarceration on the society as a general, it is considered that poor classes of the society are affected in terms of economic opportunities. It is the mind-set that has been set by the justice system because of which people are not able to trust minorities and especially African Americans. For instance, it is expected that mass incarceration will reduce the wages of the inmates.

For people like them, it is expected that they will take a lot of years down the pipeline to evolve as middle class families (Alexander, 2013). Psychologically, people believed that white men with a criminal record can still be given different job opportunities while African Americans with a same record is completely denied of the jobs that they opt for. This is an open racial discrimination to which the authorities lack stance. It is expected that the future generations of the African Americans will be growing up with the rebellious attitude towards the white population which can prove to be very damaging for American society (Alexander, 2013).

However, many claims that this aspect is quiet similar in other countries of the world such as Europe where every second African American is prone to have a criminal record. By taking a closer look at the cases for which the African Americans are incarcerated, it comes to understanding that they are locked up in the jail because of hunches or a fight heated by hate speech. Thus, overall it can be said that mass incarceration has led into critical results in the American society. Policies need to be set out in order to help poor classes that have been affected by unjust policies American justice system leading into mass incarceration.