How mass incarceration turns people of color into permanent second-class citizens

Another great online article by Michelle Alexander:

http://prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_new_jim_crow

"...The scale of incarceration-related discrimination is astonishing. Ex-offenders are routinely stripped of essential rights. Current felon-disenfranchisement laws bar 13 percent of African American men from casting a vote, thus making mass incarceration an effective tool of voter suppression -- one reminiscent of the poll taxes and literacy tests of the Jim Crow era. Employers routinely discriminate against an applicant based on criminal history, as do landlords...."

Please read the entire article 

Michelle Alexander is an associate professor at the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University and author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in an Age of Colorblindness. This article was adapted from a speech delivered at Constitution Day, an event hosted by the Constitution Project and the Georgetown Center on National Security and the Law on Sept. 17, 2010. Copyright (c) 2010 by Michelle Alexander, reprinted here with permission.