Advertisement

Book review: the left’s part in putting black America behind bars

Harvard historian Elizabeth Hinton's book From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime explains how liberal politicians, not just conservative Republicans, are responsible for the mass incarceration of black Americans today

Reading Time:4 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
A black convict on Rikers Island. Elizabeth Hinton’s history pins some of the responsibility for the growth of the black prison population on liberals. Photo: Corbis
From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime
Advertisement

by Elizabeth Hinton

Harvard University Press

4/5 stars

What if the mass incarceration and policing of African Americans in the United States was conceived not by reactionary Republicans but progressive Democrats? What if, in order to understand why police in the United States kill people daily and why there are about a million black faces behind bars in that country, you need to consider not just the usual bogeymen of Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon, but also the liberal lions John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson?

Advertisement
Advertisement