Historian, author and activist Paul Street has high praise for James Forman Jr.’s new book, Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America. Forman is a professor at Yale Law School and a former public defender in Washington, DC. His book “fills a giant hole in the literature,” illuminating the role played by “Black elites in the rise of the mass incarceration system,” said Street, himself an expert on race and the U.S. penal system. “Many ordinary, working class Black voters in the 70s and 80s have actively supported the racially disparate war on crime and drugs that ended up producing racist mass incarceration,” said Street, whose latest book is titled They Rule: The 1% v. Democracy.
Deputies in California’s Antelope Valley are disproportionately citing Black teens for minor infractions that lead to criminal records and incarceration.
Systemic racism is built into Canada’s prison system, but federal parties have little to offer incarcerated Black Canadians and their families.
This article first appeared in The Guardian.
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