Key themes
- Mass incarceration as a racial caste system — not a crime response
- The war on drugs as a mechanism for perpetuating racial hierarchy
- Colour blindness as a ideology that allows injustice to hide in plain sight
About this book
How mass incarceration recreates racial caste in America; a powerful, much-cited argument.
Published in 2010, The New Jim Crow became one of the most-assigned books in US universities and a foundational text for the criminal justice reform movement. Alexander draws on fifteen years of legal advocacy and scholarship.
Discussion questions
- Alexander argues that mass incarceration functions as a racial caste system comparable to Jim Crow. How does she build this argument — and what evidence is most compelling?
- The book focuses on the war on drugs and the discretion it gives law enforcement to target Black communities. How does discretion function as a mechanism for racial discrimination that is invisible to formal law?
- Alexander argues that 'colour blindness' — the refusal to see race — enables the perpetuation of racial hierarchy rather than ending it. How does she develop this counter-intuitive argument?
- The book calls for a broad social movement, not just legal reform. What is Alexander saying about why litigation and policy change are insufficient — and what would be required?
- The New Jim Crow has been enormously influential in discussions of criminal justice reform. What specific changes has it helped produce — and where has its argument been contested?
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