The United States today incarcerates a greater percentage of its population than any other nation on earth. In the past decade, critiques of mass incarceration have become increasingly mainstream, led by books like Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow and Ava DuVernay’s documentary 13th. These narratives usually point to the War on Drugs, the privatized “prison-industrial complex”, or post-civil rights white backlash as driving the explosion in incarceration rates that began in the 1970s. Yet, recent historical research complicates these accounts. What policies actually lead to high incarceration rates? What is the relationship between race, class, and incarceration?
Join Philly DSA as we break down the politics and economics of mass incarceration in America.
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