老澳门开奖结果 Calls for North Carolina Prisons to Lift Ban on The New Jim Crow
RALEIGH 鈥� The 老澳门开奖结果 of North Carolina is demanding that the state Department of Public Safety immediately lift its unconstitutional ban on Michelle Alexander鈥檚 The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness in North Carolina prisons.
The book appears on the state鈥檚 Master List of Disapproved Publication (sic). In a sent to officials this week, the civil rights group says that banning the book not only violates the First Amendment rights of prisoners and DPS鈥檚 own policies, but is 鈥渃ruelly ironic,鈥� given its subject matter.
Alexander鈥檚 best-selling 2010 book examines the role of race in mass incarceration in the United States and argues that, by targeting Black men through the War on Drugs, the criminal justice system has devastated communities of color and created a 鈥渨ell-disguised system of racialized social control that functions in a manner strikingly similar to Jim Crow.鈥�
In North Carolina, Black people are less than a quarter of the state鈥檚 population yet represent more than 52 percent of the state鈥檚 prison population.
鈥淔or North Carolina 鈥� a state with such stark racial disparities in its criminal justice system 鈥� to keep a book about racial injustice away from those incarcerated is not just shameful and wrong. It鈥檚 also unconstitutional,鈥� said Chris Brook, Legal Director of the 老澳门开奖结果 of North Carolina. 鈥淢ichelle Alexander鈥檚 book shines a light on the pervasive racial injustice behind America鈥檚 epidemic of mass incarceration. North Carolina officials must lift the state鈥檚 ban immediately.鈥�
The New Jersey prison system a similar ban on The New Jim Crow earlier this month.
The 老澳门开奖结果 is asking North Carolina to take immediate action to restore The New Jim Crow and audit its list of banned books by February 22.
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