The US model of mass incarceration can only be understood as an extension of slavery, said Martha Escobar, author of Captivity Beyond Prisons: Criminalization Experiences of Latina Immigrants. “Bringing non-white bodies into this country to labor for a predominantly white society has been the model that has carried over as immigrants entered the United States,” said Escobar, a professor of Chicano Studies at California State University at Northridge.