But this inequitable treatment has its roots in the correctional eras that came before it: each one building on the last and leading to the prison landscape we face today. Mass incarceration is an era marked by significant encroachment on the freedoms of racial and ethnic minorities, most notably black Americans. No new era is built from a clean slate, but rather each is layered on top of earlier practices, values, and physical infrastructure. We must grapple with the ways in which prisons in this country are entwined with the legacy of slavery and generations of racial and social injustice. It is a narrative founded on myths, lies, and stereotypes about people of color, and to truly reform prison practices-and to justify the path this report marks out-it is a narrative that must be reckoned with and subverted. Carson and Anderson, Prisoners in 2015, 2016, 14. Into the early decades of the 20 th century, these figures included counts of those who were “foreign born.” More recent demographic categories have included white, black, and Latino/Hispanic populations. In 2015, about 55 percent of people imprisoned in federal or state prisons were black or Latino. Note that over time, the ethnic and racial origins of interest to those collecting information on prison demographics have changed. Margaret Cahalan, “Trends in Incarceration in the United States Since 1880: A Summary of Reported Rates and the Distribution of Offenses,” Crime & Delinquency 25, no. From 1850 to 1940, racial and ethnic minorities-including foreign-born and non-English speaking European immigrants- made up 40 to 50 percent of the prison population. The result has been the persistent and disproportionate impact of incarceration on these groups.

From America’s founding to the present, there are stories of crime waves or criminal behavior and then patterns of disproportionate imprisonment of those on the margins of society: black people, immigrants, Native Americans, refugees, and others with outsider status. It is a narrative that repeats itself throughout this country’s history. Certainly the number of people sent to prison was far greater during the era of mass incarceration than in any other time period, but the policies that fueled that growth stemmed from a familiar narrative: one involving public anxiety about both actual and alleged criminal behavior by racial and ethnic minorities and the use of state punishment to control them. Although the unprecedented increase in prison populations during this period may seem like an aberration, the ground was fertile for this growth long before 1970.

Color war 2008