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Brief Summary Of Chapter Four By Alexander

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In chapter three, Alexander argues that the structure of the drug war is designed in such a way, that it guarantees that its victims will consist of people from the society's undercaste. To begin with, Alexander states that there are two primary ways, in which an essentially “colorblind”criminal justice system can operate in such a discriminatory manner. The first way is by giving the police immense amounts of discretion to which they can choose whom to stop, question, frisk, search, and arrest. According to Alexander, African Americans, who became the victim of the media’s “criminalblackman” portrayal were once again victimized by law enforcement personnel that targeted them on due to their bias’ in believing that all African Americans were …show more content…

According to Alexander, the punishment that a convict suffers within prison is nothing compared to the punishments that await the convict on the outside. The first obstacle that convicts face directly following their release is whether or not they will find a place to sleep. Once labeled a felon, an ex-convict faces various forms of discrimination in housing, employment, and other necessary resources. Under Jim Crow, housing discrimination was legal on the basis of race while under mass incarceration, housing discrimination is legal against labeled felons on the basis of their prior criminal convictions (Alexander, pg 142-145). In his “get tough on crime” policies, President Clinton passed the Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act, which permitted public housing agencies to evict drug offenders, convicts, as well as deny housing to any person that was believed to be involved with illegal drugs. Additionally, the Housing and Urban Development Department developed the “One Strike and You’re out” policy, which authorized public housing agencies to evict any and all members of households that contained any individual who was associated with any type of criminal activity including drug related offenses. As a result, many ex-convicts were not only denied access to public housing but also denied housing from their family members and relatives, who were unwilling to take the risk of being evicted by housing an ex-convict, and therefore as stated by Alexander many ex-convicts soon became homeless (Alexander, pg

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