Thirty five years ago this week on October 27, President Reagan signed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986. It established huge disparities in the sentences for crimes involving crack cocaine vs. powder cocaine even though there was no evidence of differences in the biological impact of both forms of the drug. Strict mandatory sentences were based on a 100:1 ratio meaning that a sentence involving 5 grams of crack cocaine was the same as the sentence involving 500 grams of powder cocaine. Because crack cocaine was the form of the drug plaguing many low income Black communities, the result was huge racial disparities in the nation’s exploding prison population. The overall strategy of this “war on drugs” was the major factor in the mass incarceration of Black people. Although the disparities in the sentencing guidelines for cocaine have been reduced recently, the impact of the mass incarceration of Black people for non-violent drug offenses continues to be a symptom of racial disparities in our criminal justice system. The development of for-profit prisons has contributed to the ongoing mindset of punishment instead of rehabilitation, because there is an economic incentive to keep people in prison.
Ten years ago, Michelle Alexander wrote the groundbreaking book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. I highly recommend it, because her insightful analysis still needs to be heard today. I want to share a few sentences from her book that are especially meaningful to me, and I hope are meaningful to you too:
…colorblindness has proved catastrophic for African Americans…The seemingly innocent phrase, “I don’t care if he’s black…” perfectly captures the perversion of Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream that we may, one day, be able to see beyond race to connect spiritually across racial lines…It is precisely because we, as a nation, have not cared much about African Americans that we have allowed our criminal justice system to create a new racial undercaste. (p. 228)
The first video posted below is a short interview with Michelle Alexander that provides an overview of the premise of her book.
Another foundational resource for understanding the history and contemporary impact of racial disparities in our criminal justice system is the documentary 13th directed by Ava DuVernay. It is available on Netflix and YouTube. The trailer for the film is the second video posted below.
As we mark another election season, we hear the familiar calls for “law and order.” As people of faith committed to racial justice, we cannot accept this simplistic phrase and its associated simplistic policy focus to just “get tough on crime.” Rather, we are called to learn the complicated history of the role of race in our criminal justice system so that we can work to dismantle racism in that system and end the “war within” that has claimed so many casualties through mass incarceration. Only then will we have a criminal justice system that is truly based on justice for all.