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"[What this book is intended to do] is stimulate a much-needed conversation about the role of the criminal justice system in creating and perpetuating racial hierarchy in the United States. The fate of millions of people--indeed the future of the Black community itself--may depend on the willingness of those who care about racial justice to re-examine their basic assumptions about the role of the criminal justice system in our society. The fact that more than half of the young Black men in many large American cities are currently under the control of the criminal justice system (or saddled with criminal records) is not--as many argue--just a symptom of poverty or poor choices, but rather evidence of a new racial cast system at work." Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness