Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America

Content Warning: The section of the guide addresses racism and racial inequities in the US criminal justice system.

“Far from ignoring the issue of crime by blacks against other blacks, African American officials and their constituents have been consumed by it.”

Defenders of the criminal justice system often claim that Black leaders ignore Black crimes against Black people and overemphasize police violence against Black people. Tracing the history of tough-on-crime policies from the 1970s onward, Forman demonstrates that this is far from the case.

“Although mass incarceration harms black America as a whole, its most direct victims are the poorest, least educated blacks.”

This quote underscores the importance of class divisions to Forman’s argument. The tough-on-crime policies that fueled mass incarceration impacted all Black people, but police largely focused on poor Black communities.

“Every generation makes mistakes.”

Forman identifies the failure to decriminalize marijuana as one of the greatest criminal justice mistakes of the 1970s. Instead of punishing marijuana offenses with minor fines, officials across the country became increasingly aggressive in their enforcement of drug laws, swelling the country’s prison population.