Ta-Nehisi Coates first published “The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration” in October of 2015. Four and a half years and an important prison reform law (the First Step Act) have passed, how much has changed?
There seems to have been some improvement. Not only has the total incarceration rate dropped, but the gap between the total number of black and white prisoners has shrunk.
This progress would have to be maintained for decades, however, before anything like an equitable state of affairs could be reached. That it was president Trump, of all people, who passed the First Step Act, goes to show just how strong the momentum in favor of prison reform is, and how much our so-called leaders are really those being led. (Compare Tolstoy on Napoleon). What’s worrying though, is that this tide of support for prison reform could just as easily and mysteriously withdraw and we would be left with a system which has not been fundamentally changed, only “tuned up.”
It is therefore imperative that whoever our next president is, follows up. As is, the First Step Act, does nothing to explicitly address racial inequality. The assumption seems to be that racism will gradually and painlessly work itself out of the system, like a baby tooth.
For an in-depth account of what the First Step Act does do see https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/100230/next_steps_in_federal_corrections_reform_1.pdf
recycled paper clips 