System of oppression · 1971–now
Mass Incarceration
The explosive growth of the US prison population, concentrated among Black Americans.
On the timeline
- September 9, 1971The Attica prison uprising
Prisoners seize Attica demanding humane conditions; the state retakes it with deadly force.
- 1985The crack epidemic devastates Black cities
Cheap crack cocaine floods urban neighborhoods, met with mass arrests rather than treatment.
- October 27, 1986The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986
Mandatory minimums punish crack 100x more harshly than powder cocaine, devastating Black defendants.
- September 13, 1994· debatedThe 1994 Crime Bill
Sweeping legislation that accelerated incarceration and policing in Black communities.
Resources
Dramatization of the Central Park Five case.
Documentary tracing the 13th Amendment loophole to mass incarceration.
Mass incarceration as a system of racial control.
Coerced sterilizations of incarcerated women — a near-forgotten eugenic practice.
The investigation that exposed a prosecutor's pattern of striking Black jurors — and reached the Supreme Court.
The origins of the U.S. carceral system, from 1800s penitentiaries onward.
The "except as punishment" clause, from convict leasing to today's prison labor.
Death-row cases where prosecutors struck Black jurors at twice the rate of whites.
Arkansas's criminal-eviction law jails tenants — a modern criminalization of poverty.
Slavery's "taste for violent punishment" and the modern prison.
The former plantation's convict-leasing past and present-day carceral labor.
The landmark argument that mass incarceration operates as a contemporary racial caste system.
An award-winning undercover exposé inside a private prison.
Nonprofit confronting mass incarceration, racial injustice, and the legacy of slavery.
The "e-carceration" economy that extracts money from poor, disproportionately Black defendants.
Pulitzer-winning definitive history of the Attica prison uprising.
The web
Connections to other moments, systems, and investigations — the links rarely drawn together.
- connects to (incoming)·EventMcCleskey v. Kemp: the courts close the door
Insulated mass incarceration from challenge on racial-bias grounds.
- connects to (incoming)·ThreadPolicing & the Courts: Instruments of Control
Policing and the courts are the front end of the prison system.
- part of·ThreadFrom Owned to Caste
The "New Jim Crow": a criminal caste stripped of rights, reactivating the 13th-Amendment exception.
- caused (incoming)·ThreadGreed — The Root
A carceral economy turned policing and prisons into a source of cheap labor and private profit.
- enabled (incoming)·ThreadThe War on Drugs
Drug-war enforcement is the primary engine of the prison boom.
- profited from (incoming)·InstitutionCoreCivic
CoreCivic profits from incarceration and prison labor.
- profited from (incoming)·InstitutionThe GEO Group
GEO Group profits from prisons and detention labor.
- enabled (incoming)·EventThe Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986
The 100-to-1 crack/powder sentencing disparity funneled a generation of Black defendants into prison.
- enabled (incoming)·EventThe 1994 Crime Bill
The 1994 bill accelerated the prison boom.
- connects to (incoming)·EventRedlining is institutionalized
Disinvestment concentrated poverty that later policing and prisons targeted.
- documented by (incoming)·Event"The Message"
"The Message" narrated the conditions of the inner city that the carceral era would deepen.