“We could choose to be a nation that extends care, compassion, and concern to those who are locked up and locked out… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Private landlords as well as public landlords are free to discriminate against people with criminal records for the rest of their lives.… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
In response to the advocacy of groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving, most states adopted tougher laws to punish drunk driving. Numerous… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
For those interested in learning more about corporations and private individuals profiting from the caging of human beings, I highly recommend the… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
In fact, in some countries there are actually voting drives conducted in prison! But here in the U.S., we seem to take… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
I think that we need to begin talking about what does it mean to create these safe spaces in our communities, to… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
The war on drugs has been the engine of mass incarceration. Drug convictions alone constituted about two-thirds of the increase in the… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Kids are growing up in communities in which they see their loved ones cycling in and out of prison and in which… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
If everyone charged with crimes suddenly exercised his constitutional rights, there would not be enough judges, lawyers, or prison cells to deal… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
People charged with drug offenses, though, are typically poor people of color. They are routinely charged with felonies and sent to prison. — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
The prison-industrial complex employs millions of people directly and indirectly. Judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, prison guards, construction companies that build prisons, police,… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
About 70% of those released from prison return within a few years, and the majority of those who return in some states… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
The system functioned relatively automatically, and the prevailing system of racial meanings, identities, and ideologies already seemed natural. Ninety percent of those… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Bill Clinton presided over the largest increase in federal and state prison inmates of any president in American history. — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
... as recently as the mid-1970s, the most well-respected criminologists were predicting that the prison system would soon fade away. Prison did… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
In many large urban areas, the majority of working age African American men now have criminal records and are thus subject to… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Mass incarceration has become normalized in the United States. Poor folks of color are shuttled from decrepit, underfunded schools to brand new,… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Now that private prison companies have found that they can make a killing on mass incarceration, these private prison companies are now… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“The genius of the current caste system, and what most distinguishes it from its predecessors, is that it appears voluntary. People choose… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
I think most people have a general sense that when you're released from prison, life is hard, but, you know, if you… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Some prison officials are determined to keep the people they lock in cages as ignorant as possible about the racial, social, and… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
When we pull back the curtain and take a look at what our 'colorblind' society creates without affirmative action, we see a… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
When young black men reach a certain age - whether or not there is incarceration in their families - they themselves are… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Our prison population quintupled in a thirty year period of time. Not doubled or tripled - quintupled. We went from a prison… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Private prison companies are now listed on the New York Stock exchange and are doing quite well in a time of economic… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
If you ask for good schools, you aren't likely to get them. If you ask for jobs or economic investment, you won't get that… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
The uncomfortable reality we must face is that California, like the nation as a whole, has treated generations of African Americans and Latinos as… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“Seeing race is not the problem. Refusing to care for the people we see is the problem. The fact that the meaning of race… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Since the nations founding, African Americans repeatedly have been controlled through institutions such as slavery and Jim Crow, which appear to die but then… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“Felon disenfranchisement laws have been more effective in eliminating black voters in the age of mass incarceration than they were under Jim Crow…These figures… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“That was King’s dream—a society that is capable of seeing each of us, as we are, with love. That is a goal worth fighting… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Activists take the risks, while advocates are professional tinkerers with the system. What's necessary is for those who are advocates to support those who… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“Civil rights protests were frequently depicted as criminal rather than political in nature, and federal courts were accused of excessive “lenience” toward lawlessness, thereby… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
We cannot 'fix' the police without a revolution of values and radical change to the basic structure of our society. — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
If we continue to tell ourselves the popular myths about racial progress or, worse yet, if we say to ourselves that the problem of… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
The mass incarceration of poor people of color, particularly black men, has emerged as a new caste system, one specifically designed to address the… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“[T]he slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery. —W.E.B Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
