The United States has the world¿s largest prison population, with more than two million behind bars. Alexander says this is mainly due to Americäs `war on drugs,¿ launched in 1982. In The New Jim Crow, she explains how this government initiative has led to Americäs black citizens being imprisoned on a colossal scale. She compares this mass detention¿with black men up to 50 times more likely to be jailed than white men¿to the Jim Crow era segregation that once pervaded the American South. Though the Civil Rights Movement supposedly ended segregation in the early 1960s, the war on drugs opened the door to a new racial caste system.

Dr Ryan Moore holds PhDs in both Sociology and Cultural Analysis from the University of California, San Diego. He has taught at universities across America and is the author of Sells Like Teen Spirit: Music, Youth Culture, and Social Crisis (New York: NYU Press, 2009).

Ways in to the Text Who was Michelle Alexander? What does The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness Say? Why does The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness Matter? Section 1: Influences Module 1: The Author and the Historical Context Module 2: Academic Context Module 3: The Problem Module 4: The Author's Contribution Section 2: Ideas Module 5: Main Ideas Module 6: Secondary Ideas Module 7: Achievement Module 8: Place in the Author's Work Section 3: Impact Module 9: The First Responses Module 10: The Evolving Debate Module 11: Impact and Influence Today Module 12: Where Next? Glossary of Terms People Mentioned in the Text Works Cited