The fate of millions of people—indeed the future of the black community itself—may depend on the willingness of those who care about racial justice to re-examine their basic assumptions about the role of the criminal justice system in our society. Michelle Alexander More Quotes by Michelle Alexander More Quotes From Michelle Alexander Our nation has slashed budgets for education, job training, economic development, and drug treatment while investing billions in prisons and militarized police. A penal system unprecedented in world history has been born. Millions have been arrested and stripped of basic civil and human rights. Michelle Alexander police education history world I am inclined to believe that it would be easier to build a new party than to save the Democratic Party from itself. Michelle Alexander i-am new party believe If everyone charged with crimes suddenly exercised his constitutional rights, there would not be enough judges, lawyers, or prison cells to deal with the ensuing tsunami of litigation. Michelle Alexander lawyers everyone prison enough During the Jim Crow era, poll taxes and literacy tests kept the African-Americans from polls. But today, felon disenfranchisement laws accomplished what poll taxes and literacy tests ultimately could not, because those laws were struck down. But felony disenfranchisement laws had been allowed to stand. Michelle Alexander stand down because today The Supreme Court has made it nearly impossible to prove race discrimination in the criminal justice system. Michelle Alexander discrimination impossible justice Prosecutors frequently overcharge, load up charges on individual defendants, knowing that three strikes laws and harsh mandatory minimum sentences will force people to plea bargain and essentially convict themselves because they're terrified of doing a life sentence for a relatively minor crime. Michelle Alexander will doing life people Exposing police lying is difficult largely because it is rare for the police to admit their own lies or to acknowledge the lies of other officers. This reluctance derives partly from the code of silence that governs police practice and from the ways in which the system of mass incarceration is structured to reward dishonesty. Michelle Alexander reward police silence practice I believe this system of mass incarceration would have Dr. King turning in his grave. There's no doubt in my mind that Dr. King would be doing everything in his power to build a movement to end mass incarceration in the United States; a movement for education, not incarceration. Michelle Alexander king power mind education The U.S. Supreme Court has eviscerated Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, giving the police license to sweep communities, to conduct 'stop and frisk' operations. Michelle Alexander against stop police giving After years as a civil rights lawyer, I rarely find myself speechless. Michelle Alexander find myself lawyer rights Some of our system of mass incarceration really has to be traced back to the law-and-order movement that began in the 1950s, in the 1960s. Michelle Alexander 1950s system some back My experience and research has led me to the regrettable conclusion that our system of mass incarceration functions more like a caste system than a system of crime prevention or control. Michelle Alexander control me experience research The greatest myth about mass incarceration is that it has been driven by crime and crime rates. It's just not true. Michelle Alexander true about just crime If you take into account prisoners, a large majority of African American men in some urban areas, like Chicago, have been labeled felons for life. These men are part of a growing undercaste - not class, caste - a group of people who are permanently relegated, by law, to an inferior second-class status. Michelle Alexander you men life people
