From the War of Poverty to the Wat on Crime SSB

Hinton Elizabeth, From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime (The Making of Mass Incarceration in America), Howard University Press, 2016

“But the extraordinary expansion of the urban police forces, court cases, and prison populations during the War on Drugs should be understood as the culmination of the domestic policies described in this book, rather than their beginning” (Hinton 4)

 Hinton wants the reader to focus on a more broad outlook on mass incarceration regarding the policies for funding of our criminal justice system with crime rates in urban, crime ridden areas.

Hinton hooks the reader in with a line of irony that even though incarceration rates have gone up, crime still increases. This can be seen as a crux and is linked to the thesis of this article. She provides historical context (essentially for the rest of the introduction but particularly here) about Lindon B. Johnson, and how his War on Poverty can be seen as the starting point to this crux Hinton wishes to solve. (1-2)

She emphasizes further, with evidence from Senator Strom Thurmond and the FBI that the government’s attempt to control crime only made the issue worse. An effective rhetorical strategy here is the use of sources from the very people she is discussing over to create strong, irrefutable evidence. It is explained that new policies with more funding going towards the police led to incentive to make incarcerations which could be a massive contributor to the issue. (2-7)

 Another crossroad is establishing where it is agreed upon by both conservative and liberal policy makers that mass incarceration must be prevented, yet there is a connection between right-leaning segregationists in office, and anti-crime legislation. She then uses this point to assert that the issue of mass incarceration must be fought primarily at a federal level to solve the issue nationwide. She then adds that there are many African American politicians in DC who advocate for a reformed criminal justice system that give way to American citizen activist protesting these policies. (7-9)

 Hinton then introduces The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander asserting that even though the book excels in discussing the book over a the 21^st century, she will attempt to add more historical context in her own book. She hopes in doing so, she will broaden the discussion to fully understand the inner workings of how mass incarceration began. (10-11)

She continues with her historical context going back to the beginning of the war on poverty in the LBJ era and then builds into how this ultimately led to the war on crime/drugs. this is a power rhetorical strategy used as she first goes through the 60s to the present simply providing historical context, but now she is cycling back through what she already went over now focusing on how the war on poverty led to the war on crime which created this system of New Jim crow. She ensures that her readers follow along with each of her points and understand the cause and effect of late 20th century policy (11-18).

She wraps up her article with the “so what?” that she will be discussing in the rest of her book: the war on crime created a well funded police force in urban areas with the incentive of preventing crime, leading to racial division and mass incarceration of black people. She explains how later on she will reference how certain federal policies lead to violence in this nation and how she will analyze this system as a New Jim Crow. She concludes with the assertion that the Reagan war on drugs is primarily what led to this system of mass incarceration present day. (18-26)