The New Jim Crow
Ch. 1
 By the 1770s there was a racial caste system based
upon slavery in the United States
 After the Civil War southern whites felt that a new
system of social control was needed
 Black Codes introduced
 Vagrancy laws – Ku Klux Klan- Convict camps and
convict leasing
 Conservatives- blames liberals for pushing blacks
ahead of their proper place- contributes to their
downfall
 Southern Manifesto- led by Sam Ervin in Congress-
101 of 120 members of Congress support- to
preserve Jim Crow by all legal means
 Backlash against Brown v. Board of Education and
the de-segregation of schools
 Some good things- Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting
Rights Act of 1965-Civil Rights Movement
 Civil Rights Movement was then considered a
breakdown of law and order
 1960s – crime rate rose for 10 years- Baby Boom
Generation has increased the number of 15 to 24
year olds in the population- commit most of the
crimes.
 1964 riots in Harlem
 1968 Many riots after MLK killed
 What is the Southern Strategy?
 A new majority can be created out of the Republican
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Party
Law and Order rhetoric- to capture the white south
and blue collar Catholic vote
Appealed to racial fears and antagonisms
Still resentment in the South over busing and
desegregation
Poverty not caused by structural factors but by
culture
 There was a shift from fighting white collar crime to
fighting street crime
 Alexander claims that the War on Drugs was a
crackdown on race – only 2% of Americans at the
time thought there was a problem with drugs
 Blue collar jobs are disappearing
 Economy is shifting from industrial to a service
economy
 Lack of college educations for Blacks left them
isolated and jobless- resulted in more incentives to
turn to drugs
 Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986- started strong
penalties for drug use and mandatory minimum
sentences
 Willie Horton Ad
 Willie Horton Ad George HW Bush 1988 – YouTube
 Clinton escalates the Drug War
 American Drug War:The Last White Hope (a kevin
booth film) - YouTube
 $17 billion is cut from public housing, an additional
$19 billion went into corrections- prison
construction became the main housing program for
the poor.
 1 strike and you are out of public housing for drug
dealing
 A new racialized system of control- 2 million behind
bars
 90% admitted to prison for drug offenses were Black
or Latino
 The new Jim Crow was born.
 2/3 of the rise of prisoners in prison was due to
drugs
 In 2005, 4 out of 5 arrests were for drug possession
 (No history of violence for most drug offenders)
 4th Amendment procedures have been cut back by
the Supreme Court