Clancy’s Reviews > The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness > Status Update

This is one of the dozen racial profiling studies listed:

“In Volusia County, Florida, a reporter obtained 148 hours of video footage documenting more than 1,000 highway stops conducted by state troopers. Only 5% of the drivers on the road were African American or Latino, but more than 80% of the people stopped and searched were minorities.” (Pg 132)

“One study involved a video game that showed photos of white & black men holding either a gun or other object (wallet, phone). Participants were told to decide as quickly as possible whether to shoot the target. Participants were more likely to mistake a black target as armed when he was not, and mistake a white target as unarmed, when he in fact was armed- reflecting unconscious thought process.” (Pg 104)

“Even Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has condemned the harsh mandatory minimum sentences imposed on drug offenders. He told attorneys (...), “Our [prison]resources are misspent, our punishments too severs, our sentences too loaded. I can accept neither the necessity nor the wisdom of federal mandatory minimums sentences.”

This book is very good, but I have to read it more in the mindset of a text book and less a casual summer read. Going to commit to a section every day and share a quote.

“At the time he (Reagan) declared this new war (on drugs), less than 2 percent of the American public viewed drugs as the most important issue facing the nation.” (Pg 49)