Race in America

In Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America, Yale law professor James Forman, Jr. explains why the war on crime that began in the 1970s was supported by many African American leaders in the nation’s urban centers, and how that support would have devastating consequences for residents of poor black neighborhoods. Lauren-Brooke Eisen‘s Inside Private Prisons: An American Dilemma in the Age of Mass Incarceration details the complicated and perverse incentives rooted in the industry, from mandatory bed occupancy to vested interests in mass incarceration. Law professor Angela J. Davis edits the essay collection Policing the Black Man, which explores and critiques the many ways the criminal justice system impacts the lives of African American boys and men at every stage of the criminal process, from arrest through sentencing.

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