Michelle Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, and the excerpt* based on it, describes the ways in which our criminal justice system has replaced overtly racist laws with a “system of racialized social control” (440) based in the skewed demographics of U.S. prison populations and the many rights we strip people of once they leave jail, prison, parole, or probation. The restrictions people face are very similar to those presented under a different excuse in the Jim Crow era, including disenfranchisement and difficulty in securing a job or housing. Because people of color and the poor are over-represented in the criminal justice system, their communities feel the weight of the criminal justice system disproportionately.
One of the difficulties in tackling this issue is knowing where to begin. There are issues with how people enter the system as well as the consequences when they leave. However, a couple of related campaigns have recently seen some victories — or at least some preliminary steps in the right direction.
The first of these is the #RaiseTheAgeNY campaign, which had the goal of raising the age at which people are tried for crimes as adults. In New York and North Carolina, 16- and 17-year-olds are automatically charged as adults despite the fact, as described by the campaign, that the cognitive development of adolescents is not yet complete. The stats compiled at raisetheageny.com include the fact that most of the crimes for which children were tried as adults were misdemeanors, and over 80% of 16- and 17-year-olds sentenced in New York are black or Latinx. Our criminal justice system is not well known for deterring recidivism, but the prospects for young people who enter the system as “adults” are very, very grim. Earlier this year, New York’s governor signed into law a change so that 16- and 17-year-olds will no longer be automatically tried as adults.
Another recent campaign raised funds to help bail black mothers out of jail leading up to Mother’s Day. They made an effective case in this video they released for what they called National Bail Out Day, and according to https://nomoremoneybail.org/, the coalition of organizations leading this campaign was able to bail out 100 women for Mother’s Day. As an article in The Root during the fundraising campaign noted, these were women who had not been convicted, but had been detained mostly for low-level crimes like loitering. The author also notes that black women make up 44% of all women in jail despite making up just 12.8% of the total female population. After a successful Mama Bail Out Day, the coalition is now planning similar efforts for Father’s Day, Juneteenth, and Pride.
There is some danger in getting too sentimental about the ways libraries and other information professions can help with these issues. We might talk about beefing up after-school programming to keep teens productively busy, critical collection development as a way to show people they are valued in the culture, or programs for families to help with some of the burdens faced in poor communities and communities of color. These are all good goals. However, I’m really drawn to some of the more direct, tangible actions being taken.
Along the lines of Mama Bail Out Day, one local project that has caught my eye is the Storybook Project. Through this program, incarcerated parents and grandmothers can select one book per child per session. Trained volunteers record the parent reading the book, and then a CD of the recording is sent to the child along with a copy of the book. The program recognizes that incarceration not only places the convicted in a pretty vicious cycle, but it affects entire families. This is one small way to help families stay connected while encouraging good reading habits.
While this program isn’t run by a library, it doesn’t seem like a stretch for some libraries to be able to adapt the idea. There are many other ways libraries could consider partnering with incarcerated populations, as well as ways to help provide transitions once people leave the criminal justice system.
*Alexander, M. (2010). The new Jim Crow. In S. J. Ferguson (Ed., 2016), Race, gender, sexuality, and social class: Dimensions of inequality and identity (2nd ed., pp. 439-442). Los Angeles, CA: Sage.
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