Category #1
The United States has about this percentage of the world’s population but about 25% of its prisoners.
5%
This type of media, along with "law and order" rhetoric, serves to perpetuate myths about the criminal justice system and anti-Blackness
Copaganda
This federal initiative, launched in the 1980s, dramatically increased drug enforcement and incarceration rates.
The War on Drugs
13th argues that criminalization has historically been used to justify controlling this group after slavery.
Black Americans
Both Alexander and DuVernay argue that mass incarceration is driven more by this than by rising crime rates
Policy (or political decisions)
This legal concept gives police, prosecutors, and judges flexibility in decision-making, which Alexander argues contributes to racial disparities
Discretion
This Supreme Court decision effectively eliminated the checks and balances that allowed the criminal justice system to be held accountable for racist outcomes
McCleskey v. Kemp
In The New Jim Crow, people labeled as this after release face legal discrimination in housing, jobs, and voting
Felons (or people with felony convictions)
According to Alexander, this percentage of criminal cases are resolved through plea bargains rather than trials.
95-97%
These laws require fixed prison sentences for certain crimes, limiting judicial discretion.
Mandatory minimum sentences
In 13th, this system allows incarcerated people to be used for low or no-wage labor
Prison labor (or convict leasing / modern prison labor system)
This concept explains how laws can appear neutral but still produce unequal outcomes across racial groups
Structural (or systemic) racism
In 13th, this constitutional amendment abolished slavery except under this condition.
Punishment for a crime
This concept describes how white Americans, particularly those with less economic power, were offered status, privilege, and a sense of superiority in exchange for supporting systems like mass incarceration and racial control, effectively quelling interracial class consciousness
The Racial Bribe
Alexander argues that mass incarceration functions as this type of system, similar to earlier racial hierarchies
The racial caste system
In 13th, this practice criminalized Black life through minor offenses like vagrancy after slavery.
Black Codes
Black men are incarcerated at this approximate multiple compared to white men in the U.S.
5-6 times
Both the book and documentary argue that each new system of racial control is framed as this to gain public support
Race-neutral (or about crime/safety rather than race)
Systems of inequity in mass incarceration are often explained at the ____ level, but primarily function at the _____level
(Think the Four I's)
Individual, Institutional
**Daily Double**! Alexander explains that there are several key parallels between mass incarceration and Jim Crow segregation. Name two parallels
Bonus- name one of the critical differences
Parallels- Legalized discrimination, disenfranchisement, jury exclusion, Surpreme Court support, segregation, symbolic reproduction of race
Differences - Racial hostility, white victims, Black support