Home / Authors / Michelle Alexander

Michelle Alexander

Michelle Alexander Quotes

Professor

Michelle Alexander is a distinguished professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley. Born on October 7, 1967, she is recognized for her expertise in criminal justice and civil rights. Alexander has authored numerous articles and books on the subject of mass incarceration in the United States and its effects on African American communities.

Filter quotes by topic

All People Prison Mass Incarceration Incarceration Drug Black Jim Crow Criminals Mass Men

Famous Michelle Alexander Quotes

“One in three young African American men is currently under the control of the criminal justice system in prison, in jail, on probation, or on parole - yet mass incarceration tends to be categorized as a criminal justice issue as opposed to a racial justice or civil rights issue (or crisis).”

“Mandatory minimum sentences give no discretion to judges about the amount of time that the person should receive once a guilty verdict is rendered. Harsh mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses were passed by Congress in the 1980s as part of the war on drugs and the "get tough" movement, sentences that have helped to fuel our nation's prison boom and have also greatly aggravated racial disparities, particularly in the application of mandatory minimum sentences for crack cocaine.”

“I do believe that something akin to a racial caste system is alive and well in America.”

Believe Wells America Alive Castes Caste System

Author:Michelle Alexander

“For reasons that have stunningly little to do with crime or crime rates, we, as a nation, have chosen to lock up more than two million people behind bars. Millions more are on probation or parole, or branded felons for life and thus locked into a permanent second-class status.”

People Littles Two Reason Nations Behinds Class Millions Crime Rate Bars Chosen Permanent Locked Locks Parole Branded Crime Rates Felons Lock Up Probation Class Status

Author:Michelle Alexander

“The mass incarceration of poor people of color, particularly black men, has emerged as a new caste system, one specifically designed to address the social, economic, and political challenges of our time.”

People Men Political Social Black Challenges Poor Economic Color Mass Our Time Addresses Poor People Castes Incarceration Caste System Mass Incarceration

Author:Michelle Alexander

“Mass incarceration has become normalized in the United States. Poor folks of color are shuttled from decrepit, underfunded schools to brand new, high tech prisons and then relegated to a permanent undercaste - stigmatized as undeserving of any moral care or concern.”

States Care School Poor United Moral United States Color Mass Concern Prison Folks Brands Permanent Brand New Incarceration Mass Incarceration Undeserving Decrepit

Author:Michelle Alexander

“Black men in ghetto communities (and many who live in middle class communities) are targeted by the police at early ages, often before they're old enough to vote. They're routinely stopped, frisked, and searched without reasonable suspicion or probable cause.”

Men Enough Age Causes Black Community Class Middle Vote Police Reasonable Middle Class Suspicion Ghetto Probable Cause

Author:Michelle Alexander

“Eventually [black men] are arrested, whether they've committed any serious crime or not, and branded criminals or felons for life. Upon release, they're ushered into a parallel social universe in which the civil and human rights supposedly won during the Civil Rights Movement no longer apply to them.”

Men Humans Universe Social Black Rights Crime Movement Serious Human Rights Committed Criminals Civil Rights Release Parallels Arrested Civil Rights Movement Branded Felons

Author:Michelle Alexander

“For the rest of their lives, [black men] can be denied the right to vote, automatically excluded from juries, and legally discriminated against in employment, housing, access to education and public benefits. So many of the old forms of discrimination that we supposedly left behind during the Jim Crow era are suddenly legal again once you've been branded a felon.”

Men Form Left Black Behinds Benefits Vote Access Discrimination Employment Eras Denied Housing Left Behind Jury Crow Excluded Right To Vote Jim Crow Branded Felons Access To Education

Author:Michelle Alexander

“I say we haven't ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.”

America Havens Castes

Author:Michelle Alexander

“In many large urban areas, the majority of working age African American men now have criminal records and are thus subject to legalized discrimination for the rest of their lives. It is viewed as "normal" in ghetto communities to go to prison or jail.”

Men Age Community Records Subjects Normal Areas Majority Prison Criminals Discrimination African American Jail Urban Ghetto Urban Areas

Author:Michelle Alexander

“One study conducted in Washington, D.C. indicated that 3 out of 4 black men, and nearly all those living in the poorest neighborhoods could expect to find themselves behind bars at some point in their life.”

Men Black Behinds Study Bars Neighborhood Poorest

Author:Michelle Alexander

“Nationwide, 1 in 3 black men can expect to serve time behind bars, but the rates are far higher in segregated and impoverished black communities.”

Men Black Community Behinds Higher Rate Bars Black Community

Author:Michelle Alexander

“A massive new penal system has emerged in the past few decades - a penal system unprecedented in world history. It is a system driven almost entirely by race and class.”

World Past Race Class Driven Decades Massive World History Unprecedented

Author:Michelle Alexander

“The United States does have the highest rate of incarceration in the world dwarfing the rates of even highly repressive regimes like Russia, China or Iran. This reflects a radical shift in criminal justice policy, a stunning development that virtually no one - not even the best criminologists - predicted forty years ago.”

World Years Doe States Justice United United States Policy Development Highest Years Ago Rate China Criminals Russia Radical Forty Iran Regimes Stunning Criminal Justice Incarceration

Author:Michelle Alexander

“Our prison population quintupled in a thirty year period of time. Not doubled or tripled - quintupled. We went from a prison and jail population of about 300,000 to now more than 2 million.”

Years Millions Periods Prison Population Thirty Jail Thirty Years Prison Population

Author:Michelle Alexander

“Most people seem to assume that this dramatic surge in imprisonment was due to a corresponding surge in crime, particularly violent crime.”

People Seems Crime Assuming Dues Violent Dramatic Imprisonment Corresponding Violent Crimes

Author:Michelle Alexander

“What has changed since the collapse of Jim Crow has less to do with the basic structure of our society than with the language we use to justify it. In the era of colorblindness, it is no longer socially permissible to use race, explicitly, as a justification for discrimination, exclusion, and social contempt. So we don't. Rather than rely on race, we use our criminal justice system to label people of color "criminals" and then engage in all the practices we supposedly left behind.”

“Today it is perfectly legal to discriminate against criminals in nearly all the ways that it was once legal to discriminate against African Americans. Once you're labeled a felon, the old forms of discrimination - employment discrimination, housing discrimination, denial of the right to vote, denial of educational opportunity, denial of food stamps and other public benefits, and exclusion from jury service - are suddenly legal.”

“As a criminal you have scarcely more rights, and arguably less respect, than a black man living in Alabama at the height of Jim Crow. We have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.”

Men America Black Rights Criminals Height Crow Alabama Castes Jim Crow

Author:Michelle Alexander

“For African American children, in particular, the odds are extremely high that they will have a parent or loved one, a relative, who has either spent time behind bars or who has acquired a criminal record and thus is part of the under-caste - the group of people who can be legally discriminated against for the rest of their lives. For many African American children, their fathers, and increasingly their mothers, are behind bars. It is very difficult for them to visit. Many people are held hundreds or even thousands of miles away from home.”

People Children Home Mother Father Parent Difficult Behinds Records Groups Particular Criminals Miles Bars African American Relative Loved Ones Odds Miles Away Castes Away From Home

Author:Michelle Alexander

“For children, the era of mass incarceration has meant a tremendous amount of family separation, broken homes, poverty, and a far, far greater level of hopelessness as they see so many of their loved ones cycling in and out of prison. Children who have incarcerated parents are far more likely themselves to be incarcerated.”

Children Home Parent Levels Poverty Greater Broken Amount Mass Prison Separation Eras Loved Ones Hopelessness Cycling Incarceration Mass Incarceration Broken Homes

Author:Michelle Alexander

“When young black men reach a certain age - whether or not there is incarceration in their families - they themselves are the target of police stops, interrogations, frisks, often for no reason other than their race. And, of course, this level of harassment sends a message to them, often at an early age: No matter who you are or what you do, you're going to find yourself behind bars one way or the other. This reinforces the sense that prison is part of their destiny, rather than a choice one makes.”

“There can be many bars, wires that keep a person trapped. All of them don't have to have been created for the purpose of harming or caging the bird, but they still serve that function.”

Persons Has Beens Stills Purpose Bird Function Bars Trapped Wire

Author:Michelle Alexander

“Certainly youth of color, particularly those in ghetto communities, find themselves born into the cage. They are born into a community in which the rules, laws, policies, structures of their lives virtually guarantee that they will remain trapped for life. It begins at a very early age when their parents themselves are either behind bars or locked in a permanent second-class status and cannot afford them the opportunities they otherwise could.”

Age Law Opportunity Parent Born Community Behinds Class Policy Youth Color Structure Bars Permanent Guarantees Locked Trapped Cages Ghetto Guarantees That Class Status

Author:Michelle Alexander

“For many, whether they go to prison or not is far less about the choices they make and far more about what kind of cage they're born into.”

Kind Choices Born Prison Cages

Author:Michelle Alexander

“Middle-class white children, children of privilege, are afforded the opportunity to make a lot of mistakes and still go on to college, still dream big dreams. But for kids who are born in the ghetto in the era of mass incarceration, the system is designed in such a way that it traps them, often for life.”

Way Children Stills Dream Bigs Kids Opportunity Born White Mistake Class Middle College Goes On Mass Privilege Eras Middle Class Traps Ghetto Incarceration Mass Incarceration

Author:Michelle Alexander

“The wave of punitiveness that washed over the United States with the rise of the drug war and the get tough movement really flooded our schools. Schools, caught up in this maelstrom, began viewing children as criminals or suspects, rather than as young people with an enormous amount of potential struggling in their own ways and their own difficult context to make it and hopefully thrive. We began viewing the youth in schools as potential violators rather than as children needing our guidance.”

“The mythology around colorblindness leads people to imagine that if poor kids of color are failing or getting locked up in large numbers, it must be something wrong with them. It leads young kids of color to look around and say: "There must be something wrong with me, there must be something wrong with us. Is there something inherent, something different about me, about us as a people, that leads us to fail so often, that leads us to live in these miserable conditions, that leads us to go in and out of prison?"”

People Ifs Looks Different Kids Young Poor Numbers Imagine Failing Conditions Color Prison Mythology Miserable Locked Imagine That Inherent Large Numbers Locked Up

Author:Michelle Alexander

“I think this mythology - that we're all beyond race, of course our police officers aren't racist, of course our politicians don't mean any harm to people of color - this idea that we're beyond all that (so it must be something else) makes it difficult for young people as well as the grown-ups to be able to see clearly and honestly the truth of what's going on. It makes it difficult to see that the backlash against the Civil Rights Movement manifested itself in the form of mass incarceration, in the form of defunding and devaluing schools serving kids of color and all the rest.”

“The bigger picture is that over the last 30 years, we have spent $1 trillion waging a drug war that has failed in any meaningful way to reduce drug addiction or abuse, and yet has siphoned an enormous amount of resources away from other public services, especially education.”

Way Years War Lasts Amount Drug Resources Abuse Bigger Addiction Meaningful Enormous Public Service Drug Addiction War On Drugs Drug Addict Bigger Picture

Author:Michelle Alexander

“We are in a social and political context in which the norm is to punish poor folks of color rather than to educate and empower them with economic opportunity.”

Political Opportunity Social Poor Economic Color Folks Empowering Educate Norm

Author:Michelle Alexander

“Of course, no one should be trapped in bad schools or bad neighborhoods. No one. But I think we need to be asking a larger question: How do we change the norm, the larger context that people seem to accept as a given? Are we so thoroughly resigned to what "is" that we cannot even begin a serious conversation about how to create what ought to be?”

People Thinking Needs Should Seems School Courses Given Accepting Serious Ought Conversation Asking Neighborhood Trapped Norm Resigned

Author:Michelle Alexander

“The education justice movement and the prison justice movement have been operating separately in many places as though they're in silos. But the reality is we're not going to provide meaningful education opportunities to poor kids, kids of color, until and unless we recognize that we're wasting trillions of dollars on a failed criminal justice system.”

Has Beens Reality Kids Opportunity Justice Poor Movement Color Dollars Prison Criminals Meaningful Justice System Criminal Justice Criminal Justice System

Author:Michelle Alexander

“Kids are growing up in communities in which they see their loved ones cycling in and out of prison and in which they are sent the message in countless ways that they, too, are going to prison one way or another. We cannot build healthy, functioning schools within a context where there is no funding available because it's going to building prisons and police forces.”

Way Kids School Force Community Growing Up Growing Building Healthy Messages Police Prison Available One Way Loved Ones Funding Cycling Police Force

Author:Michelle Alexander

“We're foolish if we think we're going to end mass incarceration unless we are willing to deal with the reality that huge percentages of poor people are going to remain jobless, locked out of the mainstream economy, unless and until they have a quality education that prepares them well for the new economy. There has got to be much more collaboration between the two movements and a greater appreciation for the work of the advocates in each community. It's got to be a movement that's about education, not incarceration - about jobs, not jails.”

“It's important to teach students about the reality of the system, that it is in fact the case that they are being targeted unfairly, that the rules have been set up in a way that authorize unfair treatment of them, and how difficult it is to challenge these laws in the courts. We need to teach them how our politics have changed in recent years, how there has been, in fact, a backlash. But we need to couple that information with stories of how people in the past have challenged these kinds of injustices, and the role that youth have played historically in those struggles.”

“I think it's important to encourage young people to tell their own stories and to speak openly about their own experiences with the criminal justice system and the experiences of their family. We need to ensure that the classroom environment is a supportive one so that the shame and stigma can be dispelled.”

People Thinking Needs Important Stories Young Speak Justice Environment Shame Criminals Classroom Supportive Stigma Justice System Criminal Justice Criminal Justice System

Author:Michelle Alexander

“Just providing information about how bad things are, or the statistics and data on incarceration by themselves, does lead to more depression and resignation and is not empowering. The information has to be presented in a way that's linked to the piece about encouraging students to think critically and creatively about how they might respond to injustice, and how young people have responded to injustice in the past.”

People Thinking Way Doe Might Past Young Pieces Information Students Injustice Data Empowering Statistics Bad Things Providing Linked Resignation Incarceration

Author:Michelle Alexander

“I was inspired by what students have done in some schools organizing walkouts protesting the lack of funding and that sort of thing. There are opportunities for students to engage in those types of protests - taking to the streets - but there is also writing poetry, writing music, beginning to express themselves, holding forums, educating each other, the whole range.”

Writing Done Whole School Opportunity Streets Students Type Music Is Inspired Range Protest Funding Forums Writing Poetry Writing Music

Author:Michelle Alexander

“There is a tremendous amount of confusion and denial that exists about mass incarceration today, and that is the biggest barrier to movement building. As long as we remain in denial about this system, movement building will be impossible. Exposing youth in classrooms to the truth about this system and developing their critical capacities will, I believe, open the door to meaningful engagement and collective, inspired action.”

“Most criminologists today will acknowledge that crime rates and incarceration rates in the United States have had relatively little to do with each other.”

Littles States Today United United States Crime Rate Acknowledge Incarceration Crime Rates

Author:Michelle Alexander

“Incarceration rates - especially black incarceration rates - have soared regardless of whether crime has been going up or down in any given community or the nation as a whole.”

Has Beens Whole Given Nations Black Community Crime Rate Incarceration

Author:Michelle Alexander

“Defenders of the status quo will often try to mislead the public by saying, "Just look at our state prisons: nearly half of the inmates are violent offenders. This system is about protecting the public from violent crime." This type of statement is highly misleading.”

Trying Looks States Half Crime Type Prison Violent Statements Status Quo Mislead Defenders Offenders Inmates Violent Crimes

Author:Michelle Alexander

“What defenders of the system typically fail to acknowledge is that the reason violent offenders comprise a fairly large percentage of the state prison population is because they typically receive longer sentences than non-violent offenders.”

States Reason Failing Prison Population Sentences Violent Acknowledge Percentages Defenders Offenders Non Violent Prison Population

Author:Michelle Alexander

“I think it's critically important for people to understand that this system of mass incarceration governs not just those who find themselves in prison on any given day, but also all those who are in jail, on probation or parole, as well as all those who are just months away from being locked up again because they are unable to find work or housing due to their criminal record.”

People Thinking Wells Important Given Records Months Mass Prison Dues Criminals Jail Locked Housing Locked Up Incarceration Parole Mass Incarceration Probation

Author:Michelle Alexander

“The war on drugs has been the engine of mass incarceration. Drug convictions alone constituted about two-thirds of the increase in the federal prison population and more than half of the increase in the state prison population between 1985 and 2000, the period of our prison system's most dramatic expansion.”

“Most Americans violate drug laws in their lifetime, but the enemy in this war has been racially defined. Not by accident, the drug war has been waged almost exclusively in poor communities of color, even though studies have consistently shown - for decades - the people of color are no more likely to use or sell illegal drugs than whites.”

People Has Beens War Use Law Community Poor Enemy Study Color Drug Sells Lifetime Accidents Decades Defined Illegal Consistently War On Drugs Illegal Drugs Drug Laws

Author:Michelle Alexander

“Now that's hard for many people to believe, given that the media image of a drug dealer is a black kid standing on the street corner with his pants sagging down.”

People Believe Hard Kids Given Black Streets Media Drug Standing Corners Pants Dealer Drug Dealers Street Corners Sagging

Author:Michelle Alexander

“Plenty of drug dealing does happen in the 'hood, but it happens everywhere else in America as well. In fact, some studies suggest that where significant differences in the data can be found, white youth are more likely to engage in illegal drug dealing than black youth.”

Wells Doe Facts Happens America Found Black Differences White Study Youth Drug Significant Plenty Data Illegal Hood Illegal Drugs Black Youth

Author:Michelle Alexander

About the Author

Born: October 7, 1967
Known for: Professor
Quotes: 175

Related Topics

People Prison Mass Incarceration Incarceration Drug Black Jim Crow Criminals Mass Men

Popular Topics

People Ifs Thinking Knows Men World Way Want Love Life Inspirational Needs Giving Feels Should Writing Trying Years Mind Firsts

Books & Sources

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of ColorblindnessRelated source material

The New Jim Crow: Young Readers’ Edition: Mass Incarceration in the Age of ColorblindnessRelated source material

Similar Authors

Peter MoskosBrowse related quotes
Kool A.D.Browse related quotes
Otto Perez MolinaBrowse related quotes
Sam BransonBrowse related quotes
Michael K. WilliamsBrowse related quotes
Angela DavisBrowse related quotes
Fred KorematsuBrowse related quotes
Barry McCaffreyBrowse related quotes
Glenn LouryBrowse related quotes
Bryan StevensonBrowse related quotes