I guess there are ‘conspiracy theorists’ who are considered Right-wing – mostly people who believe vaccines and 5G are ways for the government to control your mind, or something – but I think we can safely consider this type of Critical Race Theory as Left-wing conspiracy theory. The belief that all white people who are not considered allies are out to put down black people is a pretty wild conspiracy. I picture Charlie Kelly (Day) huffing glue in the basement of the mailroom connecting a bunch of dots from opened letters in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, but that might be just me because I am a visual person (for those of you not following the reference, type in that last sentence before the “but” into the Google machine followed by “meme”). Anyways, this chapter covers the conspiracy of the new Jim Crow via mass incarceration.

Alexander starts the chapter by bashing the American criminal justice system – some points are well deserved, and others seem to be a bit farfetched with no citations listed – but she jumps right into the two major myths she finds to be believed about the drug war.

“The first is that the war is aimed at ridding the nation of drug ‘kingpins’ or big-time dealers. Nothing could be further from the truth. The vast majority of those arrested are charged with relatively minor crimes. In 2005, for example, four out of five drug arrests were for possession, and only one out of five was for sales. Moreover, most people in state prison for drug offences have no history of violence or significant selling activity.”

Sure, the drug war does not do a good enough job at taking down “kingpins.” We might be able to agree on that, but how many kingpins are there? Even the black market of illegal drug sales is not exempt from the laws of the marketplace. There is still supply and demand, and a functioning marketplace does not have more producers than consumers. What I am trying to say is, of course there will be more people arrested for drug possession than drug sales because there are more users than dealers in an effective drug market. If there were more dealers in jail or prison than users, given the current drug laws, that would be something to talk about. What she states in the first myth is perfectly obvious and not really noteworthy. Also, I looked up the source for the last statement made about how “most people in state prison for drug offences have no history of violence or significant selling activity,” and found her source made the same claim with no supporting evidence cited to the claim. Maybe it is true or maybe it is false, but what I know is true is the introduction to this chapter would not get a passing grade in a freshman writing class if you cannot cite your source material properly.

“The second myth is that the drug war is principally concerned with dangerous drugs. Quite to the contrary, arrests for marijuana possession – a drug less harmful than tobacco or alcohol – accounted for nearly 80 percent of the growth in drug arrests in the 1990s. Despite the fact that most drug arrests are for nonviolent minor offenses, the War on Drugs has ushered in an era of unprecedented punitiveness.”

The claim that marijuana is not considered a dangerous drug is highly disputed. I say this even though I am pro-legalization for marijuana, not because I use the drug, but because I find most stoners to be annoying and legalizing weed would give them one less thing to talk about. This claim is disputed because what can be considered “dangerous” to the individual is largely dependent on their chemical makeup. For example, a person with a family history of or predisposed to psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia are much more likely to develop long-term symptoms of the disorder if they use marijuana. I found a few studies supporting claims like this, but I will not cite them here because this is not may main point in this review and I do not feel the need to die on this hill defending myself from angry stoners who read my reviews. What I do find interesting, even though it is not a claim made here, is the calls for ‘imprisonment’ to be replaced by ‘treatment’ when a majority of drug offenses are for non-dangerous drugs like marijuana. Why would treatment be the solution for a drug that is not considered dangerous? I am not sure unless some of the claims she is making are not true. And if they are true, maybe a better message is this: the best way to not be arrested for drug possession is to stop using the drug until it can a legalized.

Alexander continues with criticisms of police practices that violate the 4th Amendment – prohibiting unreasonable search and seizure – and I actually agree with her on many of her points. She criticized stop and frisk, pretext stops, and the Supreme Court allowing search and seizures by police based on suspicion instead of probable cause. She lists a few examples of Americans, mostly black males, who were unlawfully, in her opinion, searched and arrested for drug possession when the arresting officers had no probable cause to search in the first place. I do not think her examples were very good, considering more than one had defendants who were holding a pound of cocaine, but I do understand her point. The unfortunate part about this topic is, like many dilemmas, there is no perfect solution, only tradeoffs. We want police to protect us and serve the community, but we also want to maintain our God-given, constitutionally protected freedoms. There is no doubt that crime drops when law enforcement is allowed to search anyone they believe might be doing something illegal, but with that, civil rights violations caused by police naturally increase. I typically take a more libertarian stance on this topic, meaning, I do not believe police should be allowed to search you based on no reasonable grounds, but two things can be true at once. Much like I mentioned in the previous paragraph, the best way to stay out of jail is to not do anything illegal. I do not have much sympathy for people who are arrested for drug trafficking with a pound of cocaine even though the pretext to their arrest was a simple traffic violation (this is an example Alexander uses in her book). Even though Alexander and I do not totally agree on this, I think we could find a lot of common ground here.

The criticisms I have with Alexander in this section is her creating a false relationship between the judge and police.

“The parade of guilty people through America’s courtrooms gives the false impression to the public – as well as to judges – that when the police have a ‘hunch,’ it makes send to let them act on it. Judges tend to imagine the police have a sixth sense – or some kind of special training – that qualifies them to identify people who are guilty of drug crimes without evidence.”

First, experienced police officers can often read body language that helps them detect possible criminal behavior. There is no real “special training” for this, but an officer who has arrested enough criminals can tell when something is wrong. For example, most police officers who work high crime areas can tell you if someone is carrying a gun just by the way they are walking down the street. The person might be holding up their pants or walking in a way that the officer can tell there is an added weight on their hip or backside. Now, does this mean police officers should be allowed to just pull anyone aside and search them? No, I do not think this is a good idea when there is no probable cause. But, again, the more we restrict the ability for law enforcement to do their job, the harder it will be to fight crime. It also makes sense if officers are more willing to search under smaller pretexts when patrolling in a high crime area. Secondly, and more importantly, judges given a “false impression” of the ability of law enforcement because of guilty people in their courtroom does not make any sense. A judge’s job is not to assess the abilities of the arresting officer, but to form an opinion about the possible guilt or innocence of the accused. A judge can dismiss a case based on a 4th Amendment violation, but that does not mean the offender did not commit a crime. Also, like I have been saying, the best way to not get arrested for drug possession is to not carry illegal drugs.

Alexander moves to another opinion I completely agree with – Federalism.

“The federalization of drug crime violated the conservative tenet of states’ rights and local control, as street crime was typically the responsibility of local law enforcement.”

This is not uncommon for progressive types – to have an ideology full of contradictions – because remember, a few chapters ago she made the claim that state’s rights is a tool of the racial caste system. I agree, state crimes should be left to the state for the exception of illegal activity that crosses state boarders. Considering many drugs come from out-of-country it does make sense for there to be a national effort to fight drug trafficking.

I will end this part of the Chapter 2 review with this, Alexander and many more conservative-minded people might agree on some of her criticisms in this half of the chapter. It is good to find common ground like this, and frankly, I am hoping to find some more later in the book. Her point on the U.S. starting the War on Drugs at a time when drug use was on the decline is a problem we have with many large government efforts to affect culture. A quote I like to use from Andrew Breitbart is, “politics is downstream from culture,” but sometimes this quote can be misunderstood. It does not mean politics cannot affect culture. It means the attempt to use politics to affect culture is like trying to swim upstream and often results in the exact opposite cultural effect it was intended to create. Even though many conservatives support the War on Drugs, it is hard to consider it a success. Does this mean drugs are good? No, of course not. It just means human beings are flawed and politics cannot fix it, but culture can. I am sure Alexander and I have different solutions as to how to fix America’s drug problem, but let us leave this review by agreeing on something. I do not think I will get many of these opportunities moving forward.

Thanks for reading my rant style review of Chapter 2 (Part 1) of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration In The Age Of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander. Please let me know if you find this useful. My goal here is to explain each chapter enough and in a somewhat objective way so others do not waste their time and money on investigating this material themselves. I always encourage anyone who wants to know more about the ideas in this book to go and read it themselves, but in case you do not want to, I am here for you. Please leave a comment with your thoughts.

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