To be completely honest, I didn’t really know much about the Reagan administration War on Drugs at the beginning of the book. When Alexander mentioned it in the introduction I was able to understand the big picture, but I was still hoping she would later explain it in more detail. Sure enough, in Chapters 2 and 3, I got what I had been hoping for.

Chapter 2 was filled with court case after court case, some of which were familiar to me from my high school government class. Other pieces of information weren’t so familiar, like how the police officers could use “pretext stops” in order to try and search for any illegal drug activity. I was curious as to how the police officers would decide on who to stop. Maybe I’m wrong, but the whole thing just seems a bit too subjective to me. What one officer may consider to be suspicious could be perfectly normal to another officer. While reading, I could understand Michelle Alexanders frustration and I could see how she could think that African Americans were targeted.

As for Chapter 3, she begins the chapter with two very interesting cases of an African American man and woman whose rights were taken as a result of incarceration. The woman, for example, was no longer eligible for food stamps and was about to be evicted. I do agree with the fact that there is a problem with what is going on in the lives of that man and woman, but once again the question I have to ask is, what about whites? I appreciate the fact that this time, Alexander takes the time to mention that the incarceration rates for drug offenses for whites had been rising as well, however where are those case studies? I am sure that if she looked hard enough, she would have found a white woman and man in the same exact situations – disadvantaged because they were former felons. Yes, her argument would not be as strong, but at least she would be presenting both cases to the reader in an efficient way.