An interesting recent interview occurred on NPR's Fresh Air that involved a legal scholar talking about her book that proposes that a Jim Crow system designed to keep African American people on the margins of society still exists through the system of mass incarceration.

The scholar worked as a criminal defense lawyer for the ACLU for many years and said that she saw firsthand how the war on drug crimes that started under Reagan began to put scores of African American men behind bars for minor crimes. 

Once the men are released from prison, they can be seen as still imprisoned in a way because of the limited opportunities for people on the margins as well as the fact that they are "branded as criminals and felons" and may have lost many of the civil rights that were gained during the Civil Rights Movement.

Being convicted of a felony can strip people of their right to vote, to serve on a jury, to be free of discrimination in employment and the right to have access to education and other societal benefits.

As discussed in other posts on this blog, many believe racism runs deep in the criminal justice system. A recent post discussed one improvement in that area, which was to make the Fair Sentencing Act retroactive so that people convicted of drug crimes involving crack (who are most often African American) are sentenced closer along the lines to people convicted of drug crimes involving cocaine (who are most often white).

Source: NPR Books, "Legal Scholar: Jim Crow Still Exists in America," Fresh Air, Jan. 16, 2012