The New Jim Crow

Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

| 4.60 | 57,262 ratings and reviews

Recommended by Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Temin, and 2 others. See all reviews

Ranked #1 in Criminal Law, Ranked #1 in Criminology — see more rankings.

"Jarvious Cotton's great-great-grandfather could not vote as a slave. His great-grandfather was beaten to death by the Klu Klux Klan for attempting to vote. His grandfather was prevented from voting by Klan intimidation; his father was barred by poll taxes and literacy tests. Today, Cotton cannot vote because he, like many black men in the United States, has been labeled a felon and is currently on parole."

As the United States celebrates the nation's "triumph over race" with the election of Barack Obama, the majority of young black men in major American cities are locked behind... more
Read Full Book Summary Buy on Amazon

Want to learn the key points of "The New Jim Crow" in 21 minutes?

Get a full book summary of The New Jim Crow by signing up for Shortform.

Shortform summaries help you learn 10x faster by:

  • Being 100% comprehensive: you learn the most important points in the book
  • Cutting out the fluff: you don't spend your time wondering what the author's point is.
  • Interactive exercises: apply the book's ideas to your own life with our educators' guidance.
READ FULL SUMMARY OF THE NEW JIM CROW

Reviews and Recommendations

We've comprehensively compiled reviews of The New Jim Crow from the world's leading experts.

Mark Zuckerberg Founder/FacebookI read The New Jim Crow, a study of how the U.S. justice system disproportionately criminalizes and jails blacks and Latinos. Making our criminal justice system fairer and more effective is a huge challenge for our country. I’m going to keep learning about this topic, but some things are already clear: We can’t jail our way to a just society, and our current system isn’t working (adapted with permission from Facebook’s A Year of Books project). (Source)

Peter Temin The new Jim Crow that Michelle Alexander is talking about is mass incarceration. (Source)

Rankings by Category

The New Jim Crow is ranked in the following categories:

Similar Books

If you like The New Jim Crow, check out these similar top-rated books:

Learn: What makes Shortform summaries the best in the world?

Learn More