Sacred Heart Reads: The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
For the past few months, Sacred Heart’s Policy and Organization team has been working tirelessly to halt the building of a new jail in Santa Clara County. With that in mind, in addition to the time of reflection Black history month presents and the board of supervisors vote coming up next week, I wanted to revisit the book that made me a prison abolitionist.
You might not agree with my total abolition stance, but it would be hard to read Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow and not agree that something big has to change in the US criminal justice system. In this book, Alexander explores the effect the war on drugs has had on Black men in the United States, and came to a shocking conclusion- in many states, as many as 23 percent of Black men of voting age had been disenfranchised following criminal convictions, largely drug related crimes. Despite the fact that study after study has confirmed that all racial and ethnic groups use recreational drugs at close to the same rate (if anything, white people are more likely to use illegal drugs according to some studies,) Black and Brown men are prosecuted far more harshly and given longer sentences than white men charged with the same offense. Alexander argues that the overwhelming target placed on Black communities has in effect recreated Jim Crow, which was a series of laws passed by former confederate states explicitly to prevent former slaves from enjoying their legal rights as citizens of the United States, including the right to vote. The only difference is that now, instead of instituting poll taxes or rigged literacy tests, Black men are now targeted for criminal offenses that, even after serving their sentences, result in legalized discrimination in employment and housing, and an increased social stigma that will follow them until they die.
If this subject fires you up, I’m pleased to present some next steps. If you believe that the County should invest in alternatives to incarceration instead of yet another jail, call the county supervisors! Go to this link (https://p2a.co/HDTrZ4o) and in 2 clicks you'll get a script and be connected with supervisors.
If you can attend the Board of Supervisors meeting on January 25th, make verbal comment telling them that we don't need another jail but we do need alternatives to incarceration, like expansion of behavioral health, community-based mental health and addiction recovery services, and a community centered process for identifying other preventative interventions. The jail related agenda items are 10, 11 and 13, and will be heard no earlier than 10:30am.
If you can't attend the BOS on January 25th, please send in written comment by emailing BoardOperations@cob.sccgov.org by 9am on Monday to get it into the public record for Tuesday's meeting, and send that same email to all 5 supervisors. And ask your friends and family to do the same!
For more resources and information about how to make your voice heard on this issue, visit https://bit.ly/carefirstSCC